Dungeon Spawned

Dark Dungeon: Book 1

Author: D. R. Rosier

Copyright 2017.  This is a work of fiction.  Names, Characters, Places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.  Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental.  All rights reserved.  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission.

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Epilogue

Afterword:

About the Author

Other erotic fantasies by D. R. Rosier:

Non-erotic Fantasy titles:

Book Description

Prologue

The two sisters walked into the nursery.  They were both stunning.  Hair as dark as night, that shimmered with points of light as if they were stars.  Dark blue eyes, faces like angels.  Their bodies were different, one closer to voluptuous, the younger of the two more athletic but still curvy.

More than just looks, they had presence.  Power and authority hung around them like a cloak.

The younger sister looked nervous.

“Are you sure about this.  We can’t take it back.”

The older sister’s beauty was marred by a snarl and dirty look at her younger far more innocent sister.

“We have no choice, you’ve seen the signs.  If we don’t do something, he will destroy us all when he grows up.”

The younger bit her lip, clearly not convinced.  She looked sweet and innocent, and in some ways, in a lot of ways, that was even the truth.

“What if we cause it by trying to prevent it?  The circumstances surrounding the fall of our family are unclear.”

The older waved her hand, ignoring her younger sister’s prattling, and summoned the ebony crystal.  She paused a moment as she looked down at the sleeping baby.  He too had a cloak of power around him.  She placed the stone on his chest, and summoned her power.

The younger sister looked hesitant, but held her peace.

The baby woke with a wail, as the cloak of power, and a wisp of golden essence rose from his body, and was contained within the jewel.  Helpless and defenseless with his soul and power stuck into the gem, the baby had no way to stop the surge of power from his older sister, as his life and body were snuffed, and destroyed.

The younger sister flinched, and then said, “How will you stop him from coming back?  That crystal won’t hold his soul and power for long.”

The older sister sneered, “He won’t be able too, not if I banish him to the mortal plane.  He’ll be greatly weakened there.”

The younger being felt a surge of power from her big sister, and the ebony crystal disappeared.

The older said coldly, “There is no room in our family for a dark god.  We had no choice.”

The younger shook her head and whispered, “May our parents forgive us.”

Lila looked down at the dark mage, with a sultry look that had a cruel edge as she sucked out the rest of his life force.  She shuddered in ecstasy, as her body took in both his body’s and his soul’s essence, milking both his cock and soul until he was empty of life.  The foolish mage should not have summoned one such as her, his circle had been amateurish, and easy to bypass.  Then, she’d fucked him to death, literally.

It wasn’t so bad, there were worse ways to go, and at least Lila gave her victims some pleasure before she killed them.  Quite possibly the greatest they’d ever felt in their puny short lives.

The succubus waited to be returned to hell, with the summoner’s death she’d be banished.  She’d be content for years, as she integrated the mage’s soul and power within her own.

Lila waited some more, and then tilted her head as she read the circle again, and laughed.  The imbecile got the banishment wrong too!  She jumped up and prowled about the room as she took a stunningly beautiful human form, her tail, horns, and claws disappearing.  She needed clothes, and to get far from here before a competent mage, or worse, some cleric of a light god came along.  She had no doubts what she had just done had rung like a beacon to anyone nearby with magic and a whit of perception.  Souls didn’t go quietly.

She grumbled as she pulled on a pair of breaches and a shirt, she’d have to find a sexy dress the first chance she got, or maybe some leathers.  It had been a long time since she’d been free and unfettered on the mortal plane, thousands of years.

She opened the door and slipped out with silent grace, there was a stairway up.  She took it two stairs at a time, light on the balls of her feet.  She opened the door at the top and saw a couch, some chairs, and a table.  She was in a small house of some kind.  She looked out the window, and discovered she was in a town or city, though she couldn’t tell how big it was yet.  She held back on using her dark magic to search, any enemies would feel it as well.  She’d made enough magical noise as it was.

She slipped out the door, and looked to the right.  The gate out of town was close, and she heard a horse around the corner.  She looked left and groaned, her posture automatically turning seductive as a group of men with swords approached her, and worse, a cleric in a white robe.

No time to saddle a horse, she ran for it.

The cleric yelled, “Stop, in the name of Yphine!”

The goddess of truth, fat chance, she didn’t even pause.  She did however channel some dark magic into a shield around her.  It was effective, mostly, as the spear of light struck her back.  It hurt like a bitch, but she was still running and managed to slip by the gate before it was closed.

Thank the dark for soldiers who were blind to magic.

A ball of fire flew past her, and exploded, knocking her off course.  She almost ran into a tree, but Lila was a very strong succubus.  Still, when the hell had a fire mage joined the hunt?  She weaved in and out of trees, and growled as she felt them still chasing her.  She was sure there were others back in the town that were saddling horses, she needed to lose the ones on foot before the others could join the hunt.

She’d fight of course, if it came to that, but she’d rather spend more time in the mortal realm playing, than going out in glory in a fight.  Sure, she might manage to take a few with her, but what was the fun in that?  She yearned for the pleasure of sex, and the drinking of souls.  Not simple death.

She seemed to be pulling ahead, when there was a loud crack of thunder in the sky.  Lila looked up at the sky and saw an ebony crystal the size of her fist falling.  It was no doubt pretty, but that wasn’t what drew her eyes.  It was the power in the crystal that pulled her attention.  Even while knowing it was a mistake, she changed course.

She wanted that stone.  If she could tame that much power, she’d be unstoppable…

Sir Gerald Lanweth, Paladin of Jodther, the god of honor, looked up into the sky in horror.  He could feel the dark power emanating from the stone.  He knew the dark sphere of magic wasn’t necessarily evil, but the reverse was often true enough.  The evilest beings in creation usually wielded it, as opposed to the other five spheres of magic.  Light, fire, earth, water, and air.

He’d been tracking down some criminals for the crown with permission of the church, evil men who associated with fell demons, and who enslaved their fellow humans.  He shook his head, that would have to wait.  The stones powerful aura was like a beacon, he couldn’t allow it to fall into the wrong hands.  He estimated where it would hit the ground, and using his magic graced from his god, he increased the speed of his movement and hardly felt the weight of his magical plate mail armor.

He felt another aura, dark, and truly evil as he approached.  He knew the feel of a demon’s magic when he felt it.  He ran between the trees and into a small clearing, and gasped when he saw the demoness holding the dark crystal.  His armor started to glow white to keep him pure from her aura, although even with just appearance he couldn’t help the surge of lust at the sight of the ripe and sexy succubus.

He pulled his holy sword which bathed the clearing in white light, the demoness snapped her eyes up and looked at him in despair, even as she moved into an innocent and seductive pose.  He was in luck.  The dark being obviously hadn’t had time to form a link with the object, and couldn’t use its power yet.

She turned with a cry and ran.  Not directly away from him which was odd, until he figured out why, as a group of soldiers, mages, and one cleric entered the opposite side of the clearing.  She was still fast despite his sword’s aura affecting her power, but not fast enough.

He lunged with all the speed and magic he could muster, and ran his sword into her back, piercing her heart.  He twisted the sword without pity.

The demoness cried out in pain as her body started to dissipate, his sword couldn’t kill her permanently, but it would banish her back to hell where she belonged.

Except, that didn’t happen.

Her despairing wail against her fate continued, as her essence and power were pulled into and absorbed by the stone, and she was trapped within it.  The stone was even more dangerous now.  He reached down and picked it up, his sword counteracting the dark aura of it as he slipped it into a pouch.

He frowned at the group, who looked at him, a few with covetous eyes.

He swore then before his god, he would hide the stone for the remainder of his life, and beyond, if at all possible…

Chapter One

Darkness.  Nothingness.

I had no idea who I was, where I was, or even what I was when my consciousness awoke.  At the time, I had no idea I’d been confined inside of a crystal for three hundred years, only now able to see beyond my prison, only now able to think no matter how simple those thoughts were.  I had no idea that I’d been buried in a paladin’s family crypt, deep down in the catacombs with a holy sword to hide my existence for the last three hundred years.

All I knew was, I was hungry for power, desired it above all else, and I desired to discover my surroundings.  I had a thirst for power, and to learn, but I knew little else but instinctive feelings, and intrinsic knowledge that seemed to hover just out of reach of my conscious mind.

What was I, was I safe?  How did I get here?  There were no answers, only questions.

I felt the power of the holy relic, the light magic, and reached out with my hunger.  The power of light was delicious, and I grabbed at greedily, feeding.  I concentrated harder, and barely a trickle of energy came off the holy relic as slowly drank it in.

It was frustrating.

I turned my senses inward, and the amount of dark magic in me was staggeringly large, yet, I could barely perceive farther than several feet from my resting place.  It didn’t make sense, and my frustration built as I looked to the structure around me, what held me.

Instinctively, I just knew the Crystalline structure was all wrong, it was set up to completely keep my power contained.  There was a small imperfection however, and that was what I could use to look without, to feed.  I was even more frustrated now, incensed as I wondered who’d done this to me.  I just knew that someone had to, this crystal was a prison.

Perhaps it was the magic, could it be growing as time went on?  Dark magic seemed to be my essence, and it appeared my soul created it automatically.  Perhaps it had caused a fault, the pressure of it from building up over time.  That fault in the crystal must have been when I woke up.  But then, what would happen if that fault widened, and the crystal shattered?  Could I survive?  I didn’t know.

The light magic swirled through the fault, but so slowly.  It was like trying to drink an ocean through a pin hole.  I recoiled, suddenly afraid I stopped feeding, what if the new magic made the fault even worse?  For a long time, I contemplated the crystal’s structure, perhaps years, I couldn’t say.  Those early days in my existence were timeless.

The structure itself couldn’t be rebuilt, with the magic inside of it anyway, it would shatter if I tried.  Yet, I could extend my will beyond the crystal.  Eventually I came up with an idea, and used that light magic I’d gathered to create a new layer around the crystal.  This new layer would be porous, designed to absorb, hold, and use large amounts of light magic.

Through the small connection, the imperfection, it would still be a part of me, yet, outside of the prison of crystal I found myself in.

I stopped almost as soon as I started.  My being seemed to make the dark magic at the rate I could push it out the crack.  That seemed more important, I didn’t want to… I wasn’t sure.  But I had the feeling it would be bad if I shattered.

The first layer would be a lattice to hold dark magic, a layer that would automatically siphon it from my prison and stabilize things.  Once it had built up, I’d be able to use large amounts of it at once.  Once again, I used the light magic, and started to build the more porous and stable structure to absorb and store dark magic.

Time… passed…

I’d had to stop several times, and absorb more light magic a little at a time, to finish the layer, and sighed with relief as my dark magic flowed out without any effort on my part.  I could still feel it, I could use it.  Control it.

Then I got started on the second layer, and used light magic to build another crystalline layer for absorbing light magic.  This didn’t take nearly as long, since once the layer started, I was able to immediately use that section of it to increase my feeding off the holy artifact, and the layer grew faster the faster I could absorb the magic.

It still took a long time, the first layer had a healthy amount of dark magic by the time I finished, and I was able to drink from the artifact.  It didn’t seem that the source of light magic would ever run out, the object of power seemed to replenish itself almost as fast as I could absorb it.

I stretched with my magic, and took another look around.  This time, much farther.

My immediate area was a tomb, with a skeleton in it, dressed in armor and clothing.  The sword was in there as well, and I was surrounded by stone.  The armor was steel, but also had magic in it which made me curious, I decided I’d have to take a closer look at it later as I moved my senses out even further.  There were also precious metals and jewels attached to a number of things, the sword, armor, and even the cloth.

Outside of the tomb was empty, with a long hallway with holes dug on the side and holding skeletons, though there was some flesh as well.  There were more precious metals and stones, though I couldn’t identify them by name, I somehow knew they held value.  Underneath the floor was nothing but rock and dirt, straight up was more hallways filled with skeletons and tombs.  I could see two floors of it above me, and then above that it changed.

There were several more floors above, and then I felt the wind, and the air.  There was power there as well, up in the air, and down in the stones, but it was faint, diffused.  Nothing like my internal darkness, or the powerful light magic of the artifact.

I reached further in each direction, just to be sure, and there was nothing else up, but far down in the ground there was rushing water.  An underground river.  That too had power, better than air and earth, but not nearly as good as light or dark.

Fire.  I didn’t know how I knew, but this type of magic was missing altogether.

I considered creating four more layers, one for each element, but then stopped.  What happened if I wanted to thicken a layer?  I already couldn’t thicken the dark layer, or it would shatter the light layer above it.  I was stumped for quite a while before I stumbled across an answer.

I built bands instead.  The Crystalline structure for Earth and Air, and for Fire and Water was incompatible.  So, I built six bands to englobe the crystal.  Well, four bands, and two rounded caps.  Dark on top, the same on the bottom with light.  Between them, connecting them, I arranged it so Dark connected with Earth, Earth with fire, fire with Air, and Air with Water, which connected to light.

That way, I’d be able to slowly add layers, ever expanding the amount of magic I could safely contain in all the spheres of magic.  Of course, I had no access to fire, but I didn’t want to rule out that changing.  I’d purposely made the light and dark a larger area, because their sources were much larger.

As I enlarged myself, the inner crystal was further reinforced, and I started to absorb magic of all kinds save fire.  I wasn’t sure why I could absorb all, use all, but intrinsically I only created dark.  It just was.

I kept building, not even sure what I’d do with the power.  I did experiment a little, and discovered I could duplicate gems and other crystalline structures with light, and precious metals and even base metals with earth magic as far as my senses reached.  I wasn’t sure at all what to do with air or water, but I kept absorbing the magic anyway.

It was strangely satisfying.

It also took a long time to build those banded layers, again I had no real time reference in the beginning, but I’d guess it took many years before she woke due to my activities.

It was a strange sensation, I felt my internal magic being drained, taken away from me.  I refocused back internally, and saw the dark magic as it left my power.  That’s when I realized I wasn’t alone, I wasn’t the only soul in the crystal.

I reached out tentatively, and felt the other soul, and the darkness.  It was attractive to me.  Its efforts to suborn my magic were laughable however.  The other soul was strong, but a mere candle compared to my bonfire.  I was angry, was the being trying to steal my power?

The magic eagerly came back to my call, and I pulled it all from the other being until it was powerless.  Then I reached out to snuff the other presence inside the crystal, but froze right before I stomped the interloper out of existence.

What if the other knew what I was, how I got here?  I seemed to know how to absorb magic, and duplicate anything I studied, but what was it all for?  I had no idea.

I examined the soul instead, which I could tell was quite alarmed by its circumstances.  It was also fairly simple to determine, unlike my soul, the other could only access dark magic and fire.  The light magic entered the core at my bidding, and I constructed a cage of light magic around the being, cutting it off from all but a small amount of dark magic to sustain it.

The question was, how was I supposed to communicate with it to ask my questions?

I had no clue, so I went back to what I was doing, building the layers and absorbing magic…

Chapter Two

Something different happened, something entered my domain.  It had a dark magic signature, much like my interloper who I still hadn’t figured out how to communicate with.  Except, this one was even weaker.  If my passenger was bonfire, and I was a forest fire, then this new arrival was now the candle.

While I was deciding what to do about this new creature, it spoke to me.

“Hi, I come in peace and swear to serve you if you allow it.  I can answer your questions.”

I studied the creature more closely.  It was just over a foot high, maybe fourteen inches.  It was in the form of a woman with red tinged skin, a ridiculously curvy body, small horns, a tail, and wings.  She gave me a salacious smile, but I didn’t really understand what that was yet.  We seemed to be connected by a tentative line of dark magic, it wasn’t quite set yet though.  It was thin, but it was a little complex.  It wasn’t just dark magic, it was dark magic organized in a specific configuration.

Something in me said it was a spell, but I didn’t really understand what that meant.

I wondered if I could use the same kind of thing to speak to my passenger, and then I answered.

“What are you, and what am I.  If you can answer those questions I’ll consider it.”

She said, “I’m a dungeon imp, and you’re a dungeon core.  All dark dungeons get one, an imp I mean.  Think of me as a guide, I can explain things.  Although, I have to say I’m impressed, you’ve already harnessed five of the six magic spheres.  I didn’t even know that was possible.  We noticed the power build up, so I volunteered.”

“You volunteered to serve someone you didn’t know?”

She smiled and winked, “Hell ain’t no picnic sweetie.  So, what do you say?”

“What does a dungeon do?”

She shook her head, and then stretched and yawned like a cat, “Uhuh, honey.  I already gave you two free answers.  Accept the bond, or I’m out of here.  I will tell you there are more advantages than information, I can be your eyes outside of the range of your reach.  I’m also the only way you’ll ever move from that crypt.”

She was exasperating, why couldn’t she just answer the question?

“First, what are the responsibilities of the bond, mine and yours.  I won’t make a deal without knowing that much, especially with a dark entity.”

She sighed, “What do you want the fine print?  Fine.  I must serve you and obey your orders.  You or your creations must never harm me, and you must protect me if anyone violates the core of the dungeon where we live.  That’s the lawyer version honey, but there are levels beyond that.  It doesn’t say for instance, that I need to volunteer critical information you don’t ask for, or that I can’t interpret your orders in a way you didn’t mean them, but I’d be happy to do that for you.  I’ll be a,” she paused a few moments, “well, let’s just say I’ll be a very good girl for you.”

Her voice was disturbingly sultry, it was a shame at the time it was completely lost on me.

I was suspicious, “Why, and are you willing to make that a part of the bond?”

She sighed, “Fine.  You are a suspicious one, I will make it part of the bond that I won’t mislead you or purposefully twist your orders.  As for why, I’m not ready to tell you, except to say it’s personal, and nothing to do with our bond, or about you being a dungeon.”

I thought that through for quite a while.  I supposed she could keep her secret, as long as she didn’t betray her word.

“Done.”

The tentative dark magic link solidified, and connected firmly with my soul, as well as hers.  I could feel her in mind, as I was in hers.  We couldn’t access each other’s memories, but our thoughts we could share, or block.  It was just obvious in the magical configuration, though I had no idea why I could read it so easily.

That reminded me of the armor, I’d meant to look at those enchantments.  I looked and studied, it didn’t take long, my mind seemed to process magical information quickly.  There was a light healing enchantment, as well as protective enchantment on the armor.  Both light magic.

“So, what’s a dungeon?”

She smiled coquettishly, “A dungeon can be a horror, or a boon, or something in between.  Your goal as a dungeon is to absorb magic, grow your power, expand your domain, and build.  It’s also a lure, the mortal races love to risk their lives for herbs, coins, jewels, magic, and other rewards, including growing more powerful themselves through experience.

“A good dungeon will balance the difficulty with the reward.  It’s also a tightrope walk.  You want adventurers to die so you can steal their power, absorb their equipment to learn new magic potions or spells, or enchantments.  Not to mentions different types of armor and weapons.  As you gain in power, you can add new levels, building down into the Earth, and moving your core lower.  Build traps, other challenges, and all that.  The more you build and the more challenging, the more power you’ll get from more experienced dungeon divers.  Better and more complicated equipment and magic as well.”

I asked rather confused, “Good?  A dark dungeon should be good?”

She giggled, “It’s all relative.  Of course, you’re not really good, as in good and evil.  But if you kill every adventurer, or don’t give out rewards, or expand above ground, what they call a runaway dungeon, they will send dungeon killers to destroy your crystal.  All I meant by good dungeon was you challenge the fools that come down here to fight for riches and power, and kill them if they fail the challenge.

“Not bad meaning, not murderous.  That won’t work, and they’ll destroy you.  If anything, you have to be more careful than most, because we’re dark we already have a point against us in some of the more narrow minded and self-righteous mortals out there.  Perhaps a better word would have been equitable.  Now, you’re going to need a name, I can’t keep calling you crystal.  Mine is Ebony.”

I replied without thinking, “I think I understand now.  My name is Nurien.”

Wait, what?  How did I know that?

“Any more advice?”

She smiled, “Lots, but in good time, we should get to work.  Although…  I’ll tell you right now you should make the levels progressively harder as they move down, to maintain the challenge as they grow with you.  Make sense?  As for where to start, that’s easy.  You my sexy crystal happen to live at the bottom of three levels of catacombs, with tons of dead things.”

Umm.

“How is that good?”

She giggled girlishly, “Well, you can raise all those corpses, your first three levels will be the undead.  Most dungeons actually start in a small area and have to build, grow, and find things to create their first monsters.  You… well you have quite the free start.

“We can do something else when you’re ready to grow, it doesn’t have to be all undead.  Much like you’re growing your crystal, you can form stairs down, and then whole new levels.  Anyway, first thing you need to do is examine the bones, and any flesh remaining.  You should also examine any gold, silver, copper, steal, and jewels down here.”

I considered telling her I could probably already build another few floors, but there was something far more important first.  Plus, I figured I’d need something else monster wise for floors four and below, which I didn’t have yet.  I also wasn’t sure how much of the magic I’d gathered would be needed to raise the skeletons, so I might not have as much as I thought.

“I did that a while ago, what’s next?”

She sighed, “Okay, so next you’re going to use dark magic to imbue the corpses.  That will make skeletons.  If you add a little earth and water to the dark, you can make zombies.  Earth and water can be used to make flesh, tendons, and muscles.  Undead knights and mages are a little harder, you need to add a spark of light magic on top of the other three in order to give them access and control to one of the spheres.  Most dungeons don’t start out with so many spheres of magic, but if you’ve got it, you might as well use it…”

I was confused, it couldn’t be that easy, “Don’t I need to use a pattern in the magic, like the pattern in our bond link?  How do I do that, I’d have to see an undead of each type and study it before I could make it.  Just shoving raw magic at it won’t work.”

She frowned, “That knowledge should be intrinsic to a dungeon.  Especially a dark dungeon.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I didn’t.  But… I wondered if I was really a dungeon after all, since my crystal was definitely a prison.  Dungeon cores could probably pass magic freely without all the crap I’d had to do to make it all work.  Maybe I was just doing dungeon like things to gather power.  Still, I had nothing better to do, and it would help me grow in power.

Honestly, I was already salivating about all the materials and magic I could learn.

“I have no idea, any thoughts?” I asked rather plaintively.

She shook her head.

Oh, I had an idea after all.

I spun some dark magic into a thread, and speared the soul sharing my crystal.

“Hello?” I asked internally, blocking my communication instinctively from Ebony.

“It’s about damned time, let me out of this thing.”

I replied, “No, what is your name.  Mine is Nurien.”

She growled, “Lila, I’m a succubus.”

Whatever that was.  I could feel her sensuous aura of course, I just really didn’t understand since I was a rock.

“Do you know how to raise corpses, create undead?”

She replied cautiously, “Necromancy?  What’s it worth to you?”

I thought about it, and I didn’t know how to force the information from her.  I decided I should be honest.

“What do you want?  I’ll tell you right now we’re stuck in here, you might go back to hell if the crystal shatters, but I’m pretty sure I’d die.”

She snarled, but held her tongue.  No doubt remembering that I’d almost snuffed her out of existence, and could do so at any time.

“What can you give me if we’re stuck in here?”

I replied, “I think I could give you senses outside, or at least the ability to see through mine, if we bonded.”

She scoffed, “You want me to serve you?”

“Well, the only thing you can really do for me is share knowledge, and that’s all I can ask of you.  Also, if we create the bond I’ll be required not to kill you as your master, even if you annoy me and I can easily destroy your soul.  Plus, at least I’ll be company, and you can see me build my dungeon and kill adventurers.  If, you share your knowledge of magic that is.”

She asked, “All my magic?”

I replied, “Of course, once you have the senses, and I’ve guaranteed your safety, I have nothing else to offer.  So, it’s got to be everything or nothing.  Nothing means destroyed by the way, so what’s it going to be?”

She sighed, “You drive a hard bargain, but you might be sorry you asked for everything, I agree.”

I set the bond, and perhaps foolishly ignored her warning as unimportant.

Knowledge streamed into my mind.  Dark magic.  Necromancy, dark soul magic, curses, sacrifice, enslavement, health draining, death magic, and demon summoning and binding.  Spells ranging from simple darkness in a small area, to horrific things.  That wasn’t all, I’d said all her magic, so I learned what basic fire magic she knew, which wasn’t much.  She could throw fire magic around, and it was also tied to her dark magic when seducing victims to use sex to consume their souls.  The fire magic could not just affect fire, it incited passion.

There was a hell of a lot I wish I didn’t know.  It wasn’t all evil of course, but much of it was.  I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised, she was a demoness after all.  There were probably other applications of dark magic she didn’t bother learning.

The necromancer spells were rather complete, I could not only create all four of the beings, but two others as well.  A lich and a vampire.  Of course, I couldn’t do those two without a soul, so they were out for the time being.

Lila asked, “Happy now?  Hold up your end.”

Reluctantly, I made my public mind available to her.  She couldn’t influence me, but she could see everything I saw, everything I thought, and everything I did.  It would have made me feel even more exposed if she could betray me, but she couldn’t.  I was her master now.  I had both an imp and a succubus, although I had the feeling only the former would freely answer my questions.

Lila said, “Damned right, and you aren’t a dungeon, I don’t know what you are, but…” she trailed off.

I asked tentatively, afraid of the answer, “Do you have any idea what I am?”

Lila sighed, “Well, you do have the power of creation, instinctively just like a dungeon.  Mortal races can’t do that, even the most powerful mages need to use a spell to create.  So, you are at least, an immortal being of power.  Beyond that I couldn’t say.  Now pay attention to your little imp before she figures out something is going on, she’s kind of sexy, isn’t she?”

That didn’t really help, I hoped I’d eventually figure out what I was, but at least I knew what I wasn’t.  I wasn’t a dungeon, and I wasn’t a mortal soul.  I decided her other advice was sound as well.

I turned my focus outward, Ebony was still patiently waiting.  She was pleasing to the senses, her aura I mean, but I wasn’t sure if that meant sexy.  Apparently, focusing inward I could get a lot done, very fast, so I wasn’t even sure if she even knew I had gone.  It couldn’t have been more than a handful of seconds since she told me she had no ideas.

I didn’t have a physical voice, or hands to cast the necromancer spells, but I didn’t need that.  I could shape the magic directly, whereas a mortal, or even a demon, needed to use gestures and words to shape magic and cast spells.

I reached out to the first floor of the catacombs, and imbued the bones with dark magic to create my first skeleton.

Ebony said, “You did it!  You almost had me worried for a second.”

“I figured it out, yes.”

One skeleton hadn’t taken all that much magic, but I had the feeling if I’d had to create the bones first it would have cost me more.  I sent my magic off and raised all the corpses on the first floor as skeletons.  Not just the humans either, dogs and other large animals that had found their way here to die became the first level of my undead.  Except the last, I built a zombie in the last part before the stairs, to give the mortals an idea of what was coming next.  After a moment of thought, I gave it a sword and shield.

The second floor was a mix of zombies and skeletons, but the last room had an undead knight in it, which was basically just a zombie with armor, weapons, and was a little more intelligent.  That small spark of light magic didn’t give it a soul, or free will, but it gave it intelligence and cunning.

The third floor was mostly undead knights, and mages.  There were two mages of each of the five types.  I didn’t bother with a fire mage, since there was no fire magic for me to absorb, my monsters wouldn’t get any either.

My magic had taken a hit, but I still had more than half left, and my crystal was absorbing it fast.  I decided I’d start building the next three floors, I also had an idea of what would go down there.  Unless some monsters came in, I’d have to go with my initial idea.  Regardless, it would take a few weeks, I was going to do it slowly.  I didn’t like the idea of having my magic hovering around zero.

Ebony said, “Okay, just one more thing.  You need to make a boss mob.  I noticed you used the next floor’s mob for that on one and two, but the last room on level three needs something special.  Especially if you are changing from undead to something else for level four.  Not every level needs a true boss monster, but every section type does.  Especially since right now it’s the end of your dungeon.  You should also consider how to make shortcuts over sections once you build farther down, but it isn’t needed yet really.”

“Alright Ebony, how do I make a floor boss?”

Ebony said, “Simply imbue one of the toughest mobs on the level with magic.  It can be an enchantment, or you can try to make the monster evolve with raw magic.  Since you don’t really know any enchantments yet, it’s got to be the latter.”

I did know a few dark enchantments, but they were all curses and wouldn’t help my boss.  I wanted to make him stronger, not weaker, clumsy, or stupid.

I created a new knight in the room next to this one.  When I fed it some earth and water magic, it started to grow, and grow, and grow, and then it exploded.

I thought about it for a minute, and did it again, but stopped before it exploded.  It was a huge undead knight, at least twelve feet tall.  I stopped adding water, but kept going on the earth a bit, focusing it on the bones, muscles and tendons which made it much stronger and denser.  After a minute of thought, I aimed some earth magic at the skin as well which made it leathery, so even if the moral’s attacks got through the armor it would be tough to kill.

Then I worked on rewards, and put a chest in this room with a few gold coins, some silver, and a few nice new weapons.  I also figured out random rewards for the small creatures, and a little better for the minor level bosses.  I wished I knew enchantments.

That gave me an idea, I broke down the dark magic for curses, which were really just enchantments with negative effects.  I knew how to use air to make something light, and I knew how to use earth to make something sharp.  I had the minor healing and protection enchantments as well.

I put the protection enchantment on the boss’s armor, and then experimented with a sword.  It took me what was probably days, and I’d destroyed countless swords, but eventually I had a sword that would never dull, and was lighter than normal.  I had my boss grab it, and I absorbed his other sword.

I was well on my way to finishing the floor four layout, and as always, I’d been expanding my crystal.  I’d hardly even needed to concentrate on it anymore.  I went back then and added a few simple traps that would only kill an unwary idiot, keeping in mind Ebony’s warning about dungeon killers.  People I didn’t want to meet.

The last thing I did was curse the crypt I was in, to hide the holy sword’s aura.  I was pretty sure they’d leave me, the dungeon core alone, but if they took the sword I’d lose access to the holy source.  It was a risk I’d have to take, and I just hoped the obvious chest in the room would make them think the crypt wasn’t worth breaking into.

No, I changed my mind.  I just couldn’t risk it, I imagined the humans would put their greedy hands on everything.  I used my magic to shape the dungeon, and the sword sunk into the stone, and disappeared below.  As long as I didn’t sink it below range, I could keep it out of the dungeon proper.  I did leave the curses though, as a last ditch defense if someone came to kill me.

Now I was ready.  I was building the next three floors, but the first three were completed.

“Umm, Ebony, how do we get those dungeon divers you were talking about to come?”

She giggled, “Just keep growing, they’ll find you eventually, they always do…”

Chapter Three

“That’s a little brilliant,” Lila said throatily.

It distracted me, “What’s brilliant?”

Lila laughed, “I’m bored, so I was examining our little prison through your senses.  The layer of dark and light, it’s far more intelligent than I gave you credit for.”

It was?  I’d thought it was a screw up until I figured out the band thing.  Oh crap, she can read my mind.

She giggled, “I see, well the reason you did it is still kind of smart.  But it’s having a secondary effect.  The layer of dark and light magic before your thick banded layer is acting like a barrier and hiding your dark aura from anyone outside the crystal.  It’s why Ebony is so convinced you’re just a normal dungeon.  All she can feel is your outside layer of bands, which while getting stronger is still extremely weak.”

I checked on Ebony, she seemed to be creating some sort of imp lair in the corner of the room we were in.  I supposed it was rather dusty and dreary out there.  I wondered if it stunk.

Lila must have been bored, because she answered my thought.

“It could start to, if you don’t take care of that sort of thing.  You need to maintain your zombies.  You should also use that air magic that mostly just sits there.  You can easily freshen the air of the dungeon with air magic, even without a spell.”

I was already monitoring the dungeon entrance, the whole thing really.  I was also building my crystal, absorbing magic from five of six magical spheres, and digging out more floors.  I’d just gotten started on number five.  Yet, it seemed easy enough for my mind to do yet another task, and I started to clear out and refresh the air with raw air magic.

“Wouldn’t a spell be more efficient?”

Lila replied, “Of course it would.  But I don’t know any, so until you learn one to imbue into the walls of your dungeon you’ll have to do it the hard way.”

I’d probably need to see some kind of air enchantment first, I wasn’t sure how to organize that type of magic at all, and couldn’t even experiment.  Better yet, I needed to kill an air mage that was carrying a spell book.  Judicious bits of raw air magic however, would make the air simply circulate with the outside far better than it normally would.  I played around with it for a while until I was satisfied I wasn’t wasting more magic than I needed to.

“Come on baby, don’t you trust me?” a wheedling male voice said.

What was that?  I moved my focus through the dungeon, and then above to the surface building.  It was within my power’s reach, but I hadn’t done anything with it on Ebony’s advice, sticking to below ground.  There were a couple of humans up there.

“This place gives me the creeps,” a female voice replied.

The young man grunted, “It is a bit creepy baby, but we need a place to lay low.  This old keep is off limits by orders of the Duke.  Even the soldiers won’t violate that.  We just need a couple of days, it’s not that bad.  I bet we could find ourselves a real bed while we count our take.”

Thieves?  Young thieves perhaps.

“A bed?” she asked suspiciously.

He replied, “Come on baby, don’t you love me?  I’m going to take care of you.”

There were a few moments of silence, and I could feel the tension.  I could also feel excitement from Lila, though I wasn’t sure why.

The young lady cried out, slapped the man, froze a second, and then ran.  She didn’t run out though, she ran directly away from the man, and into the keep chapel, followed by the man while tears ran from her eyes.

“Stop!” he yelled angrily and with frustration of some kind I didn’t understand.

I could sense her fear as she looked around frantically, and saw the entrance to the crypt.  Creepy or not, apparently she thought that was better than the alternative.  She ran for it and down the stairs, the man on her heels.

I must admit, I felt quite excited, humans, in my dungeon.  Of course, they weren’t exactly warriors, paladins, clerics, or mages.

She was running faster than I’d thought, and when my skeleton jumped out of the niche on the wall it failed to grab her, but it did take down the pursuing man in an accidental tackle, and slashed with its clawed bone hands.

She turned at the noise, saw the blood fly, and shrieked in terror.

A second skeleton went to grab her, but to my disappointment she ran and escaped back up the stairs.

The man fought with his fists, which wasn’t very effective against an undead skeleton.  It didn’t take long before his throat was ripped out, and his body ripped apart in tatters.  As soon as he died, I felt a rush of energy from his soul, the remainder of his life force.  I had no clue what to do with it, but I held it contained in the magic.  His soul fled.

I examined the body, with the soul gone I now had complete access to it.  The corpse had several diamonds in the pockets, perhaps his ill-gained loot.  Otherwise, nothing new.  I claimed the diamonds, I might have been able to make more but for now I didn’t have to.  Besides rewards, the structure of it would be ideal for holding magical enchantments.  After a moment of consideration, I raised him as a zombie and put him on the second floor.

Ebony said, “Awesome, they’ll be coming soon.”

I thought that through, at first, I’d been disappointed the young woman had escaped, I couldn’t even feel her in the building above ground anymore.  But if she was going to bring back more people, that was a good thing, right?

“Umm, Ebony?  What do I do with the life energy?”

Ebony snorted, “You need to absorb it into your own, or convert it to magic, the conversion from life energy to magic is huge.  That’s why dungeons grow so much from an adventurer’s death.  It should be intrinsic knowledge.”

It actually wasn’t intrinsic, I had no idea what to do.  First, whatever I was, I didn’t have life energy like a human, my soul and essence, my life energy, was of the dark.  I also had no idea how to convert life energy to magic to store in the bands.

I felt Lila’s annoyance, “Damnit, fine.  Of course I know how to do this, since I convert life and soul energy to power as a succubus.”

Her memories flashed into my mind.  I hadn’t gotten it earlier because it wasn’t exactly magic.  It was an exercise of power and will.

I modified the process she showed me slightly, and started processing the life energy into fire magic since I had no other source for that one.  The band for fire magic reached saturation long before I was finished, so I used the rest to top off air and earth, since those were the weakest elemental spheres that I did have to draw from.

I came to a few conclusions from that process.

That soul had not been a trained fighter with extra life or magic, and it had almost been too much for me to process and store.  I had to build faster. What would happen when I killed a real adventurer, or perhaps more than one?  I started to build layers faster, nothing had illustrated just how weak I was than almost being overwhelmed trying to absorb a powerless thief.

I spent magic to speed up my floor building as well, and decided to let my reserves be around thirty percent of my capacity, which would help too.  There was a quick burst of progress for level four, but as I started to spend magic as it came in and hovered around thirty percent it slowed again.

“Thanks Ebony.”

The imp smiled at me.

“You too Lila, I’d have been screwed without your knowledge,” I said internally, “But why did you help?”

She growled, “Because my only hope of ever escaping is you being powerful enough to figure it out.  Do you have any idea how frustrating it is to be a sex demoness without a body?”

I really didn’t, not back then.

Chapter Four

Princess Catalina, heir to the ducal district of Tenemin, and third heir to the kingdom of Nysten, was bored out of her mind.

Her father, Duke Anwar, cousin to the king, was holding court.  She knew it was important, and she was raised on politics.  One day, she’d rule this portion of the kingdom, but all she really wanted to do was run and get the hell out of there.  She was eighteen, listless, and bored.

“Pay attention Cat,” the court mage whispered into her ear from across the throne.  Daniel was an older man, and stood to attend the other side of her father’s throne.  At least she got to sit down, poor Daniel had to stand all day.

Catalina repressed the urge to say something snarky back.  She was a fully capable air mage, and had been learning air magic as long as she’d been mired in politics.  The simple air spell to whisper at a target without anyone else hearing, was child’s play.  Sometimes she thought her political and magical training had started before she was weaned.  Still, at least air magic wasn’t boring, in fact she never felt more alive than when she used it.

That was the problem, she wanted to go out there and grow as a mage, but as the heir she had very little opportunities to even practice, all her time being taken up with other things.  The idea her father would ever allow her to go dungeon diving was ridiculous.  She on the other hand, didn’t think so.  Even in a worst case scenario, if she died she had a younger brother and sister, both air mages as well.

She sighed internally, while keeping her polite political face on and paid attention.

“This is the woman your grace.  She claims a skeleton killed her friend out at the old keep right outside the city.”

Her father said, “And what were you doing there?  That area has been off limits for hundreds of years, and for good reason.”

The princess’s eyes widened slightly at the fear in her father’s voice.  She doubted any but her and the court mage could pick it up, but he was definitely afraid of something.  It sparked her curiosity.

The woman blushed, “I tried to prevent him my lord, I’m not sure why he decided to visit that cursed place.”

Her father grunted, and then said, “Very well.  Captain, hold her and question her for the full truth.  I also want you to take some soldiers, including a couple of mages and check it out.”

She itched to go, and almost asked, but it would be pointless.  Her father would never let her go along.  Most male heirs got to go into the field, and gain the experience as part of ruling.  Her father kept her in the castle like she was some precious object to be protected and coddled.  She hated it, but she also knew her duty…

Catalina knocked, and entered her father’s study later that day after the audience.

“What is it Cat,” he asked.

Catalina sighed, “Father, why were you afraid earlier.  What is it about the old paladin’s holding that makes it a death sentence to go inside?”

Her father sighed, and studied her for a moment.  She could see it in his eyes when he made the decision to tell her the truth.

“I suppose as heir you might as well know, since it will be your responsibility in the future.  Sir Gerald Lanweth was a simple landless paladin.  He found a dark crystal of power during his travels.  One that was so powerful he feared it ever falling into the wrong hands.  He spent much of his life in an effort to destroy it, but it resisted his every attempt.  It was seemingly indestructible, at least he didn’t find a way to do it.

“He feared the stone would corrupt most men, even he was tempted by the dark promise of its power.  But as he grew older, and put his sword up, he worried what would happen when he passed on.  So, he met with our ancestor, Duke Arian, and requested aid.  Duke Arian’s writings about the crystal are disturbing, the almost hypnotizing power of the crystal ensnares the mind.  Suffice it to say, you can read about it when you are duchess.

“Anyway, Arian was moved to help the paladin, and gave him the title of earl, along with a deed of land with control over the keep with a small temple in it, which had catacombs beneath it.  The land originally belonged to another Baron, who had passed away without an heir a short time before that, so the land reverted to Arian.  Regardless, Arian promised Gerald the land would stand empty and protected after his passing, which took another twenty years during which they became close friends.  That crystal, along with Gerald’s holy sword to suppress the stone’s unholy aura, is in the deepest part of the catacombs.

“So why am I afraid?  Because if there are undead there now, I’m not sure it will be possible to keep it a secret any longer.  We must find another way to deal with it.  Worse, I can only assume the stone is behind it, and that is disturbing news.”

She felt the urge to go investigate herself, and wondered at her own sanity.  Still, it was tempting for her.

“So, what will you do if the stone is awake and raising the dead?”

The duke blew out a breath, “It depends on the circumstances.  Patience Cat, we’ll see what the soldiers come back to report.”

She nodded, “Thank you father,” and left him to his work.  She had a free moment and headed toward the library to hopefully learn more magic.  She couldn’t help but remember the tone of his last words, he might as well have just said if they come back.

Carlton, high cleric of Boduna, Goddess of Order, for the city of Tenemin stared at his latest dispatch from the crown city.  His counterpart Verin in the crown city, and head of the church in all of Nysten, was a pain in his ass.

Tenemin was the southernmost city in the kingdom, by the border of Jennesar.  Jennesar was a theocracy run by the church itself, and something he knew his counterpart wished he could implement here.  Of course, that was impossible, the gentry would put them all to the sword if they tried.

His goddess was of order, and he only cared about those under his care.

Regardless, the jackass had accepted a visitation request from one of the bishops of Jennesar, which was roughly the equivalent of his ecclesiastic rank, plus the rank of a Lord.  His orders required him to have a small team on the border in a week to escort his visitor to the crown city.

It was foolishness, the jackass would be lucky if he wasn’t hung, and Carlton would be lucky if he didn’t share the gibbet.  He was no stranger to ambition, he’d managed to claw his way up to high cleric of a ducal holding, but he wasn’t suicidal.  Problem was, he had his orders, and as stupid as he thought they were, he’d no choice but to follow them.  He could only hope there wasn’t a conspiracy afoot like he feared.

There was a knock on the door, and he snapped, “What is it?”

The door opened revealing a young paladin.  He scoured his mind to come up with a name.

“Sir Cary, what is it?”

Sir Cary said, “Something interesting happened at court today,” and the young eager man proceeded to tell him about undead skeleton being sighted at the old Lanweth holding.

He pursed his lips tightly in thought.  Cary was partnered with another paladin, Diana, and they both worked with the Cleric Selwyn.  He wasn’t sure though if they should make the effort on the word of a young woman who’d obviously been dishonest, at least in part.  He made his decision and delivered his orders.

“Let the soldiers check it out, and head back to the castle where you can hear the results.  I want to know if there’s any truth to this before we start investigating.  Still, give Diana and Selwyn the information, and have them prepare a cleansing kit just in case.”

Cary bowed, “Right away your eminence,” and left the room.

Chapter Five

“What are you doing?”

Ebony was on the first floor, and I could feel the new life within my reach, I just wasn’t sure what it was about.

Ebony said, “I told you in the beginning, I can leave the dungeon.  I’m transplanting some herbs and flowers from nearby.  Did you know your just a half a mile from a large city?  Between that and the catacombs you couldn’t have picked a better place for a dungeon if you tried.  Anyway, they’re basic ingredients right now, mostly poisons, but some healing herbs as well.  You should study them so you can recreate them as needed.”

I replied, “Oh.  Thanks Ebony.  Just basic ones?”

It didn’t take long to absorb the basic life forms and patterns.  They were just plants.  I actually had it done before she even replied.

Ebony nodded, “Yes, I didn’t find any rare ingredients near here, but that will change.  When you absorb rare potions, or even rare herbs from an adventurer’s pack after death, you should be able to figure out the plant or flower it came from, and make them.  Still, even weaker poisons and health potions will have their draw.  You’re still young for a dungeon.  Weaker adventurers won’t need advanced potions.”

“Is there anything you need, for your home?  Or something else?”

Ebony giggled and twirled her hair with a finger, “No, I’m good.  Thank you.”

Lila snorted in disgust, “She’s way too sweet for an imp, no wonder she was thrilled to get out of hell, they probably tortured her all the time.”

“Be nice,” I said internally.

Lila was astonished I’d suggest such a thing, but she didn’t reply.

That’s when I felt a group of people come in range of my dungeon.  There were three men with swords, a fourth with a nasty looking mace, and two in robes.  Ebony raced back to the core room and to her room, not wanting to be caught out there with adventurers, although I wasn’t sure why.  I felt a surge of excitement, this should be fun.

The soldiers were all joking, and came in with an arrogant nonchalant attitude.  The mages trailed behind a good ten feet as they descended the stairs and entered the first room.

“What is this?  Those are adventurers?”

I was very much unimpressed, when the soldier in front fell into the crude pit trap, and impaled himself on several spikes.  That didn’t stop me from feeling the rush of his life energy as it came to me, and it was better than the thief’s life had been, but not that much better.  I was building my band layers as quickly as possible, but there was a lot left over which I used in a burst to finish up the fourth floor and a good piece of the fifth, using up the magic as fast as I could convert it instead of trying to store it.  They still needed a lot of work, but the basic layout was coming along.

Ebony shook her head, “No, those are soldiers, probably from the city.  Make sure you leave one of them alive to report back, that should bring the adventurers.”

The other soldiers were grim faced, and one of the mages said, “Be careful, let’s find that skeleton if we can.”

The soldiers grunted and finally looked serious and cautious, which was somewhat of a relief to be honest.  I needed one of them to live after all.

As they moved into the second large room, the skeletons in the hidden niches in the first room came out and moved toward the backs of the mages, at the same time more skeletons were moving toward the three soldiers in room two.

The mage spun around and raised a hand, a bolt of white light formed in his hand and shot out at my skeleton which fell to the floor.  That would be an issue, undead were vulnerable to light magic, and slightly less to fire.  They took normal damage from about anything else.

I wasn’t sure where to watch, the other mage cast fire over the heads of soldiers and into a skeleton which started to burn, yet still stayed upright and closed the distance.  By then, the light mage had taken out the second skeleton in the first room and turned to assist the others.

The soldier with the mace was a menace, and he killed the flaming skeleton with one hit, and the still flaming bones went flying around the room.  The other two soldiers swung at the two unharmed skeletons.  Their swords cut through bone, but got stuck and embedded in the rib cage.

They screamed as my skeletons slashed at their faces and necks, with sharp bone fingers.

Another skeleton went down as white light struck, that light mage was starting to really annoy me, but even losing was kind of fun.  That last skeleton though, struck again, this time his sharp bony fingers opened the soldier’s throat wide, and his life’s blood quickly flowed out.

Another burst of life energy filled me, and I wondered if I’d grown enough to even start as a dungeon.  Again, I chose to quickly expend the magic as I converted it, and finished digging out level five, and got the stairs done to level six in one large burst of magic.

The soldier with the ugly evil looking mace shattered the last skeleton, and blew out a breath.

“Fuck, that sucked,” said the soldier.

I couldn’t agree more, I was going to leave one alive, not four.  Still, they were only in room two, each level had eight rooms and the further in the more skeletons per room.  Not to mention the long hallways.  I checked the two corpses, but of course they didn’t have anything different.  I couldn’t raise them though, not with people right there, and something in me doubted they’d leave the corpses behind.

The fire mage said, “What do you think, a necromancer decided to make this its lair?”

The soldier growled, “What else?”

The light mage grunted, “Wait, I don’t think so.  This is a dungeon.”

The fire mage scoffed, “Right outside a ducal city?  How is that possible, we would have noticed.”

The light mage shrugged, “Not if it’s a baby dungeon.  Look at the facts.  The skeletons have loot, those coins appeared when they died.  And look over there in the corner, is that nightshade plant?  And over there I see healing herbs.  Plus, can’t you feel that?  The ambient mana is higher down here than it was upstairs.”

The soldier asked, “Do we continue on?”

The light mage shook his head, “I don’t think so.  We already lost two in the first two rooms, let’s report back to the Duke, we have enough information.  We should probably leave a guard upstairs just in case, but if it’s a dungeon so the undead shouldn’t wander out of it.”

The fire mage sighed, “Very well, I agree now that I think about it, let’s go.”

I sighed in disappointment when the soldiers took the bodies with them.  No big deal, it didn’t take much magic to make them from scratch, not relatively anyway.

“That went well, don’t you think?” I asked.

Ebony replied, “Absolutely, it was a little hard for them, but adventurers should do better.  I’ll finish up what I was doing now,” and the little imp zipped away on her wings.

Even if no one else died, it would be less than a week before level six was ready and I could double the size of my dungeon.  I decided to start working on the mobs now, and built a small unconnected room.  The floor was perfectly smooth, and polished.  I’d learned a lot of dark magic from Lila, but only one that would really help me populate those levels.

Demon summoning and binding.

I shaped the circles and the proscribed spell forms into the stone floor.  I had no doubt that I could handle it, Lila was a very strong demoness, and I’d beaten her will with no effort.  Whatever kind of creature of power I was, it was strong.  A human would have major trouble just summoning and binding one demon to their purpose.  But I could handle three floors worth of demons.

Especially since I’d be summoning the weaker ones, except for maybe the last boss on level six.

I double and then triple checked all the lines of the ritual before I got started.  It took time and effort, but I filled the first seven rooms with various imps.  Imps weren’t all that much stronger than skeletons or zombies, but they were far smarter.  The combination of their magic, and various traps they could sucker the adventurers into, gave me a good feeling about it.

At the suggestion of Lila, I summoned a minor succubus and incubus for the floor boss at level four, along with a couple of imps.  There were also beds in the room, tables with food, and a water fountain with clean drinkable water.

I didn’t really understand and was skeptical, but Lila assured me it would take a strong strength of will for a human to resist them.  Since the demons were bound to me, they’d channel the life force to me instead of absorbing it themselves.  They were still more than willing to do it, just for fun, and of course they could still absorb the loose but more concentrated magic of the dungeon in that area.

For the fifth level I chose warrior demons.  Not the real powerful kind, just the fodder of the demon hordes.  They were a little stronger than zombies, much smarter, and much faster.  Some even had rudimentary access to dark magic.  For that floor boss, I chose a true demon warrior, and three imps.

The sixth level wasn’t done being carved out, but I got the mobs done anyway.  That way, when it was done all I’d need to do was move the mobs in, and then move my crystal and Ebony’s home down to the new final room while building a stairway between three and four.  There was a lot to keep straight.  I’d also taken Ebony’s advice and made shortcut stairs to skip levels, only accessible from the lower level so people could leave quickly.  Anyone trying to use it to skip levels down would find themselves buried in stone.

The sixth level would be a deadly mix of the other two levels plus a demon mage.  Groups of warriors, imps, a demonic dark mage, and a minor succubus just for a distraction, although they could fight well if cornered.

The last boss of the sixth floor and the dungeon would be a similar grouping of beings, but one of the warriors would be pumped up with magic.  It took me a long time to get it right, and I’d killed a lot of demons trying, but a trickle of earth magic, a lot of dark, and some fire seemed to do the trick.  The demon was twelve feet high, had skin like stone, and was very strong.  The fire magic allowed him to light his dark blade on fire, which was already enchanted to weaken an enemy and rot normal armor on impact.

While the last half of floor six was building, I considered that there was a lot to control, and it took a lot of magic to maintain things.  I decided to hold off on making the next few floors for a while, not sure if I could support it, and concentrated all that effort on building the layered bands of my crystal faster.  Still, it was a painstaking process, and I couldn’t afford mistakes.

Chapter Six

Catalina spoke the last word of the spell, and a ball of solid air two feet in diameter, so thick it distorted what was seen through it, shot from her hands.  The target was blasted into pieces, and the wall showed signs of a heavy impact.

Daniel cleared his throat, “Princess Catalina, aren’t you supposed to be working on control?”

She looked at him pensively, she was supposed to be working on control.  She was a very powerful air mage, and the destructive stuff came much easier.  She didn’t really have a problem with the small easy stuff either, it was the advanced complicated spells she had trouble with.  Her magic would overpower the spells formation almost every time.

To be fair, she was worried, and worse, she couldn’t even confide in the court mage.  Two of the soldiers had died, but they’d identified the place as a new dungeon.  That just wasn’t possible, her father had been clear it wasn’t one, but it was also a secret so they could hardly explain that to anyone.  She’d heard mutterings when her father hadn’t immediately sent word to the guild about the new dungeon, since dungeons meant more money in the area, more taxes for the nobles, and an influx of people spending it, but he hadn’t known what else he could even do.

She wasn’t sure either, it didn’t make sense, not based on what he’d told her.  She’d offered to take a look herself and investigate with a few people she trusted, but her father had been horrified by the idea.  She wasn’t sure how long her father could delay either.  She’d considered just going anyway, but she couldn’t do it.

She shut her eyes, and tried the spell again…

“That makes no sense, he has to think about it?”

Carlton didn’t know what to think about the duke’s behavior.

“Sir?” Cary asked.

Carlton sighed, “A dark dungeon could be a very good, or a very bad thing.  We need to get the guild down here to determine if its stable or not.  I can’t ask though without my own proof, and the Duke sitting on it makes no sense from a political or a monetary point of view.”

Cary asked sounding even more confused, “Very good sir?  A dark dungeon?”

Carlton laughed, “Yes, that is somewhat confusing isn’t it?  Seems the church of light should frown on a dark dungeon’s existence, doesn’t it?  In truth, an unstable dark dungeon is a danger that has to be destroyed, but a stable dark dungeon is a boon for the church.  A stable dungeon will consistently ramp up the danger level, so with a modicum of caution a group of paladins would know when to stop before they were overwhelmed and were killed.

“Think of it this way, the only time paladins fight against dark magic is against dark magic casters and demons out in the real world, and they never know how hard it will be, or if there’s a trap around the corner ten times harder than anything they’ve faced before it.  In a stable dark dungeon that isn’t the case, which means it’s a perfect training ground for young inexperienced paladins who want to become stronger with a minimum of risk.  Do you understand now?”

Cary nodded and said smartly, “Yes sir.”

Carlton thought Cary was a good man, just a little too uptight at times.

“Very well, gather up your partners and go check it out, verify the duke’s findings.  If the duke doesn’t send a letter soon I’ll send my own to the guild.  I can’t do that though unless we verify it ourselves.”

What he didn’t say was that the duke had to be hiding something, he didn’t want to send a letter in case the report in the throne room was manufactured, or incomplete somehow.  It just didn’t feel right that the duke was sitting on it.  He shook his head, his thoughts were starting to go in circles.

Cary said, “Right away sir, Selwyn and Diana have a kit ready.”

“Very good,” he said, “You may go.”

I could sense a building frustration in Lila, but I had no idea what the problem was.  I’d asked her a couple of times, and she’d just snapped at me.

“So, what are you up to this time, sexy?” I asked.

I was a little bored, I was sure that would change when the adventurers showed up, but maintaining an empty dungeon was boring.

Ebony gasped and blushed, even as she preened and posed for me.

“Did you just call me sexy?”

Damnit, how could I explain.  It was a metaphorical slip of the tongue, because Lila kept calling the little imp woman that.  Lila was also laughing at me right now.  I supposed I could come clean with my dungeon imp, but I was hesitant to trust anyone outside the crystal prison with the information, even if I was her master right now, technically speaking anyway.  She supposedly couldn’t betray me, but she was a demoness, even if pint sized.

“Umm, yes?  I certainly wasn’t talking to the undead knight.”

Ebony grinned, “I see.  Right, what am I doing?  I don’t remember, you distracted me and...  Wait!  I was enchanting walls with my magic, to follow along with things.  How else can I tell you how to improve, or suggest really since I’m your servant.  Your sexy servant.”

Oh gods, what have I done, was she flirting with me?

Lila laughed throatily, “Yes, yes she is.  You seem to be missing the required equipment however.”

Well, at least Lila was in a better mood.

Lila said, “I’m your sexy servant too, remember.  Except, I’m going to go insane if… never mind, you wouldn’t understand.”

“What?”

Lila sighed, “Think about it, I’m a lust demon without a body or someone to fuck.  It will drive me insane eventually.”

I partitioned a part of my mind to consider this information, it was a part she couldn’t see, yet she could still see everything else.  I did comprehend, a little, but I didn’t truly understand since I was a crystal without a sex drive.  Still, there had to be something I could do.  I just didn’t want her to know I was concerned about her.  It seems dark beings were evil, or at least the demons were, which I’d decided I was most definitely not one of, and hadn’t ever been.  Did that mean there were other dark beings who weren’t intrinsically evil?  What the hell was I?  Ugh, this wasn’t about me right now.  I set this portion of my mind to figure out something that would help, and then got back to the real world.

“So Ebony, how come you ran when those soldiers came?”

Ebony frowned, and I wondered if it was because of the question, or because I didn’t call her sexy.

“I’m a dark dungeon imp, in a real way I’m here to serve you, and from that I get power.  If an adventurer ever caught me, they could bind me and force me to betray you, or give up all the knowledge about dungeons that I have.  They aren’t supposed to know that dungeons are sentient, they believe a dungeon crystal runs on instinct only.  Plus, I’m a lover, not a fighter.”

“Thanks, sexy.”

Ebony beamed at me.

Yup, that meant she was unhappy I used her name before, not the question.  I guessed that I’d better use the pet name from now on.

My partitioned mind which was still working on the Lila problem seemed focused on the mind trap spell, a dark spell where the victim was stuck inside an illusionary world in their head to live out their worst nightmares.  I wasn’t sure why that torturous spell would help, but then I started to break it down into its component pieces and reassemble the spell to be something completely different, although similar at the heart of it.

I tweaked it so that it was possible for the victim to leave the spell, I also changed it around so that the spell sucked the victim into an illusionary world to live out their deepest desires and fantasies.  It seemed obvious to me now, if she didn’t have a real body, I’d have to trick her into feeding that lustful part of her nature.  Not really trick her since she’d know it was happening, but provide an alternate way.

I really didn’t want to share my prison with an insane sex demon.  It wouldn’t be real, but the spell would make it feel real, and convince her it was real.  I hoped that would be enough.

Before I could reconnect my partitioned mind and tell Lila about the spell, we got three party crashers at the top of the dungeon.  I decided to put it off for now, I wanted to watch this, and if necessary direct my undead since they may have been tough, but were also stupidly straight forward.

Diana said, “Hold on a minute, let me check for traps.”

Cory said, “It’s just an empty room hon.”

Diana snorted in disbelief and started to cast.

Selwyn said, “Cory, empty room in dungeon equals trap.  Remember that.”

Oh shit, I’d have to stick one obvious monster in there now.  Thanks for the tip Selwyn, not that you can hear me.

The two spike traps with false floors above them started to glow green.

They were careful even then, as Diana and Cory held their swords and moved forward, and Selwyn kept watch on their back as he followed.  The niches the skeletons weren’t truly invisible, but they were almost impossible to detect from the front side of the room, the angles gave it the illusion it was a solid wall.  As soon as Selwyn passed the traps in the ground he called out.

“Two skeletons behind, I have one.”

My undead minions started forward, as Selwyn held up a symbol and called up on his god and started to glow with a white light.  The skeleton going for him collapsed into a pile of bones as it entered the light.

The second skeleton attacked Diana, who wielded a sword.  I hoped it would get stuck, but no such luck, the damn thing glowed with white light and cut the skeleton in half like a knife through butter.  The skeleton’s one attack was stopped easily by the bitch’s… I mean the paladin’s armor.

Cory said, “That wasn’t so bad.”

Diana laughed, “First room snookums, if the dungeon is good it will get a bit harder each room.  Let’s see what the dungeon left us.”

Cory said softly in question, “Snookums?”

Diana smirked, “You called me hon.  I love you Cory, but leave the pet names alone when we’re diving in a dungeon huh?  We can’t afford to be distracted on duty, least of all in this place.  Don’t forget I’m in command here.”

Cory nodded, “Yes ma’am.  Sorry.”

Diana shrugged it off and looked around.

Diana and Cory found a couple of bronze coins while Selwyn claimed some healing mushrooms from the corner.

I asked, “Sexy, are these adventurers then, they seem smarter at least.”

Ebony shook her head, “No, not yet.  If I had to guess I’d say the local church wanted to evaluate you independently.  The guild probably won’t get here for a week, you should be done with floor six by then.”

I returned my attention to the group of three when they entered the next room.  The two paladins destroyed the three skeletons in there in seconds.  My only consolation was that Selwyn person wasted mana on a find trap spell, I didn’t put any in there.

Diana said, “Do you feel that?” as they approached the next room.

Cory asked, “What, I feel a lot of things.”

Selwyn laughed, “The magic level?”

Diana nodded, “This dungeon doesn’t just have dark magic, it has light.  Perhaps more, the guild will find out.”

I guessed that they could only feel the light magic, and knew dark magic was there because of the undead.

Cory sighed, “That’s a good sign though right, if the dungeon has balanced magic it probably won’t go rogue, like if it was all dark.”

Selwyn grunted, “Maybe, it probably doesn’t hurt.”

“Is that true?” I asked.

Ebony shrugged, “Most of the balanced dark dungeons do have more than just dark magic, but not necessarily light.  Dungeons that can process all six elemental spheres are very rare, I’m a very lucky imp.”

Diana went through first, and if I’d had a body I’d have jumped with glee, when the extremely large undead dog tackled her and took her down, into the range of two more skeletons.

The skeleton managed to tear into her arm while the dog tried to bite her throat.  Unfortunately, she was very well armored there.

Cory screamed a war cry of rage and fear, and hacked the dog off her breaking it apart.  Diana immediately rolled and got to her feet while Selwyn got the skeleton with a holy bolt of light magic.  Cory handled the last skeleton while Selwyn cast a healing spell on Diana.

I sighed in disgust, “Undead are too weak against light magic.”

Ebony smiled, “Let’s see if they go down, the undead knights and mages can take a lot more damage.  Not sure about the zombies.”

To my disgust, they didn’t venture to the second floor, and the zombie at the end didn’t give them much of a challenge either.  After a quick discussion, they’d backtracked and left the dungeon, seemingly satisfied they knew enough for a tentative report.  They seemed more than willing to allow the guild to do a full discovery and report, whatever that meant.

I took a few minutes to reset the undead they destroyed, respawn the flora taken, and then I made one extra skeleton for the first room…

Chapter Seven

“Lila?”

She sighed impatiently, “What now Nurien?”

“Well, I might have a solution for you.  I remade the mind trap spell.  The core is the same, I just changed the targeting, and set a trigger so you can end the dream world if you so wish.”

She seemed to perk up, “Really, you did that for me?  What does it do now?”

“It targets your greatest desires and fantasies, instead of your greatest fears.”

She replied, “Why?”

“Self-preservation, I don’t want to share my mind space with an insane demoness.”

I’d also hate to see her suffer, but I couldn’t tell her that.

She smirked in my mind and said sultrily, “You just did, you big softie.”

Shit!

She laughed, “Well, go ahead, hit me with it.  Wait, how do I break out of it?”

“It will end when your greatest desire or fantasy is temporarily sated, or just say Ebony is one sexy imp.”

She snorted, “Really?”

I replied teasingly, “No, of course not.  Well, the first part was true, for the second just focus on reconnecting with my thoughts and mind, our magical bond will still be there so it should pull you out and back into my mind, and is easy enough to do.”

She snickered, “Very well.  And… thank you.”

I formed the magic for the spell, using the abundance of energy trapped within the prison made it simple.  Then I cast it through our bond to bypass the light barrier.  I felt her mind leave mine, and be focused elsewhere.

I rejoined my mind together, there was no point hiding it, I’d already given myself away by revealing my compassion.  Considering she was stuck in here with me in this crystal prison, and didn’t have a chance of overwhelming my will and mind for my power, I supposed in the end it wouldn’t matter.  Plus, she was bound to me, and could only betray me with silence, not by lies or actions.

Although, I may reinstate it again if I ever want to surprise her in the future.

“Hey sexy.”

The sexy imp turned around, she genuinely was kind of beautiful, in an overly ripe and luscious way despite her size.  Luckily, I didn’t have a body so wasn’t really tempted by that beauty.  Plus, I was coming to like that smile she gave me when I called her sexy.

“What is it master?”

I asked, “So how do I get more monsters.  I mean, undead and demons are good for now, but I’m greedy and want more.”

She replied, “There are several ways.  I can take animals from the forest and bring them back here for you to modify and experiment on.  That’s probably the easiest way.  Another way is any dark creatures that feel your dungeon may come and volunteer service for a term.”

“Why would they do that?”

She replied, “Mutually beneficial.  If you bind them as servants you hold on to their souls when they die and can bind them back into new bodies you create.  So, by serving you they have a chance to gain power, and even gain new abilities from your experiments, relatively risk free.  Once their term of service is up you would release them, and they’d return to the world stronger.  There is one more benefit, dark creatures or races are usually hunted down and exterminated when caught killing humans.  Working for a dungeon is the exception, where challenging and killing humans is not only not retaliated against, but encouraged by the crazy bastards.  Dark creatures generally enjoy that sort of thing.”

“That kind of makes sense.  Okay, other ways?”

“You can modify plants, or create oozes which are non-sentient magic creatures made of goo.”

I replied, “I’ll pass on those, one unintelligent monster type is enough, and I already have skeletons and zombies, any more ideas?”

She tilted her head, “Not that I can think of.”

I said, “Good enough, I’ll let you know when I’m getting ready to expand again.  If no creatures show up before then, I’ll have you grab those animals.”

She nodded absently, and headed for her home in the corner.

“Lila?”

There was no answer, which surprised me.  What happened in our minds when cut off from the real world happened very quickly.  Which meant she’d been in there for a very long time.  Long enough that I was worried.  Worried enough to do something stupid.

I peeked within the spell to check on her, what I didn’t expect to happen was that I was sucked right into her mind, and into her fantasy.

It’s impossible to describe those first few moments.  I’d never had a body, not that I could remember anyway.  I had no reference for having a body, but Lila was an old and powerful demoness, and knew very well how a man’s body felt, as well as what they felt like when she was with them.

The pleasure was insanely intense, and for a moment all that existed was the hardness at my center, waves of pleasure radiating out into my body and my mind at the feel of her soft lips, and hot warm mouth taking me in.  Her tongue was soft, long, and she knew how to use it as she sucked my cock.

No, she didn’t suck my cock, she worshipped it.  I could feel her ecstasy, joy, and a deep peace from her as she pleasured my sensitive length with her tongue, lips, throat, and hands.  What was even more shocking, was I felt love, devotion, loyalty, and a deep desire to serve.  That on top of my own awe and pleasure at all the new sensations I was drowning in was just too much for me to handle, and my body seemed to lose control, and my mind seemed to lose connection with everything but the bliss as I exploded.

I barely heard her moan in ecstatic bliss as she milked my seed into her mouth.  Accepting it with devotion, like it was a gift she’d been longing for.

I was shocked as I came down, I also felt horribly guilty as she looked up at me with adoration, for breaking into her fantasy and violating her privacy.  I also couldn’t slip out, it seemed I was stuck here until she released me.  Which… was bad.  I only had the barest tentative connection with the dungeon, it was a good thing it was empty right now.  Perhaps I should have stayed partitioned after all, then at least part of my mind would be dealing with business.

The rest of the details started to make it into my pleasure shocked brain as I finished coming down.  I had expected fire, darkness, and perhaps perversions from a sex demoness.  But as I looked around and took everything in, it looked like somewhere a god may live.  There were marble columns, statues, and art so beautiful it touched the soul.

I myself, was sitting on a throne, and I could tell I had dark hair, blue eyes, and a body built like… well like a god.

The biggest shock of all was Lila herself.  She didn’t have red skin, a tail, or horns.  She did have wings though, but of the purest glowing white.  She was on her knees in a diaphanous gown of white that blurred but hardly hid her body.  Her body was voluptuous, but not overly so as if in demonic mockery.  Her skin was fair and without blemish.  Her golden tresses almost reached the floor as she kneeled between my legs and looked up adoringly at me with vivid blue eyes that looked like the sky on a clear day.  Her lips were full, and set in a smile.

What did this mean, this was her greatest passion and fantasy?  To be an angel at the foot of a god?  Not a demon at all.  I froze, suddenly afraid of her reaction if she realized it was me, not that preventing that was possible.  I knew already she would hate me seeing this vulnerable admission of her soul, more than she’d hate herself for it.

“Lila,” I said softly, an apology and an admission all rolled up in her name.

She frowned in confusion for a minute, but then her eyes narrowed, and then widened in horror, embarrassment, and rage.  I had invaded her most private thoughts, desires and fantasies, ones that she might not have even realized she’d had until the spell hit her.

“I was worried, I didn’t know this would happen when I checked up on you.”

She clenched her jaw tightly, and then the body I was in, her body, and the world went up in flames.  It was torturous for a couple of seconds, and then I was kicked out of her mind.

“Lila?”

She growled, “Don’t talk to me, and never use that spell again.”

I could feel her emotions, they were turbulent and all over the place, fierce, and then she surprised me again.  They settled on one emotion as the storm died down, an endless abyss of grief I couldn’t possibly comprehend.  What had they done to her?  What had they done to my Lila?

I partitioned my mind and put my thoughts about the fantasy encounter in it, partly to spare her having to hear the pity in my thoughts, and the rest of the reason because of my own selfishness.  Selfishness, because no matter how shocking that had been, I felt an increasingly building desire to feel that intimacy with Lila once again.  The cold sterile void of the crystal was no longer enough.

Chapter Eight

Carlton felt frustrated.  He was no stranger to politics.  He was one of the youngest to ever achieve the rank of high cleric of a city at the young age of thirty-two.  He didn’t get there by not being able to read the currents of political intrigue.  He was aware there were a few highly-placed people in the crown city that wouldn’t see even a tame dark dungeon as a good training exercise location, as he read the latest dispatch, but that wasn’t why he was upset.

He couldn’t figure out what the Duke was up to, or what he was hiding.  It didn’t make sense, dungeons were a cash crop and the Duke was dragging his feet.  Carlton also had the feeling he was on the man’s shit list for sending out his own dispatch, to the guild.  He imagined they’d be here in a couple of days to evaluate and rate the dungeon’s status in both power and dependability.  So far, there’d been no indications of it being rogue, or even unbalanced, which made the Duke’s lack of action even more suspect.

There was a knock on the door.

“Enter.”

Diana, Cory, and Selwyn walked in.  He evaluated them, they looked confident and were a good team.  At first when Diana and Cory started pursuing a personal relationship he’d considered breaking up their team.  So far as far as he could tell, they weren’t letting it interfere with their work.  Which was good, they were one of the best teams he had.

“Report,” he said calmly.

Diana said, “The group from Jennesar is on the way to the capitol, we assigned twenty soldiers for the job.  They were very close mouthed, or I should say, they went on about amicable relations between our kingdom’s churches.  He was good, I almost think he believed what he was saying himself.”

He snorted, “I bet.  And the other matter?”

Selwyn and Cory exchanged glances, and then Selwyn spoke.

“Nothing.  All the lords and ladies of the court seem just as baffled, and they’re grumbling about it.  Our source in the castle servants hasn’t heard a damned thing either.  If the there’s a reason the Duke is wary of the new dungeon, he’s keeping it close to the vest.”

Cory said, “Same here your grace, none of my contacts can explain his actions.

Carlton grunted, he really hated to be in the dark.  It was hard to prepare for the unknown.

Diana asked, “Orders sir?”

Carlton said, “I want you three to work with the guild when they get here, set up the training schedules, and keep an eye on things.  I may stick my hand in as well, be more visible.  Until we find out what’s going on, be wary but not paranoid.  We’ve always enjoyed a good relationship with the Duke of Tenemin.  I don’t think whatever it is, is aimed at us, but it will surely affect us.  Dismissed.”

He brooded as the two paladins and the cleric left his office.  He hated being in the dark.

Lila still wasn’t talking me and seemed withdrawn.

So, I threw myself into the dungeon, trying out ways to build crystal lattices faster, though it was easier said than done.  The time it took to build each layer of bands was slowly increasing because the area was increasing.  I was getting larger in extremely minute amounts.  On the good side, the payoff was still the same because of the same reason, larger layer, the larger the amount of magic I was able to absorb, hold, and channel.

I was also sure I was at my limit for now, for the size of my dungeon.  Not will and mind wise, if I had access to the great amount of dark magic inside my core on the outside, I could build a hundred levels in an instant with plenty left over, and watch over it with mental resources to spare.  No, what limited me was the small amount of magic I could control on the outside.  As a result, I tried to be as efficient with my limited magic as possible.

Another part of me was trying to automate the loot system to a certain extent.  I found I could imbue my creatures with a small amount of creation embedded into their forms, that would trigger when they were destroyed.  I integrated it with the magic to form them in the first place, so I could set rewards that matched the difficulty.  I also created several different options for each being I could create or summon.  The exceptions to that were the original enchanted items I made for the floor bosses, sometimes they would drop after, sometimes they’d be wielded or worn during battle.

Yet another part of me was busy breaking down the spells I did know, to see and experiment with different ways to put that magic together.  For now, I was limited to mostly light, fire, and dark magic, as all the spells I knew were in those spheres.  Earth, air, and water would have to wait until I gained more knowledge, yet that was only in the way I formed and shaped the magic.  Much of what I was learning would translate eventually.

I was applying the new knowledge in both spells and enchantments.

I’d also revamped the undead mages so they used more than raw magic, for those spheres I had spells for.  I’d imbued the ability to cast certain spells on them, instead of just flinging around raw magic for crude attacks and shields.  They’d still be stupid of course, but throwing a curse to slow an enemy down was almost always going to work out for any situation.  The same with protection spells.

Protection spells were a big focus for me, using dark magic.  It would blunt the attacks of light clerics and paladins at the very least, making the third floor quite a bit more difficult than the first two.

I was very busy, which was a good thing, it was keeping me sane.  That, and Ebony, at least the little imp was talking to me still.

Another part of me was looking into the idea of having an external body.  I wouldn’t be able to fully escape the crystal, since the only body I knew how to make was mortal.  I’d studied the dead bodies and was fairly sure I could recreate one, but it would only hold a small portion of my awareness and power, what I could squeeze through the small hole in my prison, and of course it would be limited to what the mortal flesh and bone could contain.

So far, I hadn’t acted on that yet, not sure if that would help or hurt.  It would be risky if I was discovered, I was supposed to be a dungeon in truth, not just in actions.

The last part of my mind, the partitioned part of mind, was busy feeling sorry for itself, and alternatively longing for and regretting the connection I’d made with Lila.  An intimacy that was both foreign and shocking, and that I both yearned for and feared to have again.  At the same time, I was completely reworking the spell, even the core of it.  The mind trap spell was meant to be torturous, and I’d come to the conclusion that the greatest desires and fantasies were just a bad as the greatest fears.

Lila had been stuck in the spell, despite being a sex demoness, the sex part was only one aspect of her greatest fantasy.  Her angelic existence, and service to a god had been another, and that fantasy and desire could never be sated, only constantly fed.  She’d have been stuck in there forever in bliss if I hadn’t joined and eventually disrupted the fantasy, but I still felt guilty about it.  I felt dirty for invading that part of her mind.

It was a problem I hadn’t solved yet though, I could target sexual desire and fantasy directly, so a quick tumble would sate the spell, but that was too diffuse an idea, the spell could randomly latch onto virtually anything the target being had ever conceived in that direction.  How could I be specific enough without targeting an extreme?  That was my conundrum.  I wanted to be ready when… if Lila recovered herself, her appetites would once again begin to grow uncomfortable.

I must not make the same mistake, my intention had been to help her, not hurt her.  I’d caused the very suffering I’d wanted to alleviate, perhaps I’d even made it worse.  The guilt drove me to make amends in some way.  Guilt, and desire.  Despite what I had done, I hoped Lila and I would one day share that intimacy again.  Which I knew was kind of screwed up, why would she want to?

Ebony said, “Anytime now.”

“Anytime what, sexy?”

Ebony blushed, “Thinking out loud, you’ve been very focused the last few days.  The guild should have been here by now.”

“What will they do when they get here?”

Ebony said, “Probably clear out the dungeon to test you, and then rate it.”

Clear out the dungeon?  That idea made me feel nervous.

“What do you mean.”

Ebony said, “They’ll send someone very powerful to test it, so they can rate it and let people know the difficulty.  That way powerful people don’t waste their time coming until you get more powerful, and beginners don’t throw their lives away.  They usually try to match the risks and rewards against talents.”

I thought about that for a minute, and it made sense.

“Ratings?”

Ebony said, “There are ratings for adventurers.  Initiate, apprentice, journeyman or journeywoman, adept, and master.  There are five levels for each rating, but they’re only used to gauge progress to the next level, and not out in the real world as a rank.  Further, they’ll assign the ratings per floor, most likely the first floor is initiate, an apprentice might get down to four, and journeyman is probably the overall dungeon rating right now for us.”

“I think I follow, that seems simple enough.”

Ebony giggled, “Not done yet.  They rate the levels and dungeon by adventurer rating, but that’s just the first part.  The second thing they rate is stability.  Stability ratings for a dungeon start at unchanging, and end at rogue.  Both of those are bad designations, stable is the actually the best sub-rating you can achieve and falls close to the middle, but closer to unchanging than rogue.  It means you change things up to be interesting, so the challenge doesn’t get predictably stale, but on the other hand you don’t vary the difficulty too much when changing a floor.”

“How could they possibly know that by clearing the dungeon once?”

Ebony replied, “They can’t, except to check if your floors get increasingly difficult as they should, but part of the responsibility of a guild adventurer is to make reports, so the longer they delve here the more accurate the second rating becomes.  They’ll leave a master here to read the reports and adjust the ratings.  If I had to guess, your initial rating will probably be journeyman-assumed stable.  Eventually the assumed part will drop off when they learn enough.”

“That’s all set, sort of.  Since no one’s gone past level one yet it’s hard to say.  Speaking of levels, you ready to move?  I finished up six a few minutes ago and it’s all set.”

Ebony nodded with an excited look on her face.

I finished off the stairway from three to four, just removing a small layer of rock to do so in this room.  I considered just moving my crystal through the ground, but decided to take the crypt with me.  It was familiar.

The ground moved beneath the crypt and Ebony’s little home as we slowly sunk down to the last room on the sixth floor.

I may not have been ready to grow yet, but I continued to do all I’d been doing to increase my understanding of magic, and improve the dungeon as it was now…

Chapter Nine

Catalina sighed and straightened her shoulders in determination, and then knocked on her father’s study’s door.

The duke said, “Enter.”

She took one more deep breath and entered the room.  Her father’s study was a mini-library, mostly comprised of books related to ruling and wars, as well as the history of the Nysten Kingdom.  Her father looked tired, and very stressed.  This wasn’t going to be a fun conversation.

He said, “What is it?”

She smiled, “Revolt, any minute now.”

He scowled, “That’s not funny.”

She nodded sharply, “No it isn’t father, we need to act, and try to figure out what’s going on.  The guild is on its way, the church is panicked, thinking you’re up to something, and our own nobles are looking at you like we’re picking their pockets.”

He sighed, “And what do you suggest?”

She said, “We can’t control this, we can only steer and mitigate.  Welcome the guild and accede to their requests, then I’m going to go along with them and keep an eye on things, figure out what’s going on.  So far everyone is convinced it’s a dungeon, so instead of trying to hide that, which we can’t, we need to go along with the stone’s plans until we can figure out what’s going on.  Dragging our feet isn’t helping father.”

He glared, “Go along?”

Of course, he’d latch onto that part of her little speech.

“Father, I’m too much like mother, this mission calls to me, so does the idea of growing stronger in battle.”

The blood drained from her father’s face.

“I’m sorry dad.  But it’s true, she didn’t die adventuring you know, she died when giving birth to my younger sister.  You can’t protect me from the world, you have to let me protect myself.”

He growled in anger, “Don’t tell me how she died, I know how she died.  I just want you to be safe.”

She said softly, “I know father, but that’s not who I am.  It’s not who you are, and it’s not who mom was.  I am your daughter, heir and future duchess, and I am a mage who needs to go out and experience things outside of these walls.”

He sighed and looked defeated.  She both wanted to jump for joy, and felt horrible at the same time.

He asked, “What’s your plan?”

She smiled, “Cousin Jerrold.  He’s a fair warrior, and he has a couple of other people in his group who plan to go in the dungeon as soon as the guild is set up.  A fire mage named Sienna, and a cleric named Suzy.  It’s a good solid team, fire and air mages work well together, and Jerold is a beast with that axe.  Plus, we’ll have Suzy in case anyone gets hurt.

“My plan is simply to investigate the dungeon myself and see what I can find out, and also make friends with the guild and other adventurers, to see if they find or sense anything out of the ordinary.  I’ll probably spend most of my time down there in the near future, once an inn goes up.”

They wouldn’t have to build a huge town since it was only a half mile from the city, but she was sure they’d build an inn nearby for all the adventurers to stay in, and spend their coin, along with a market place for loot sales.

She was worried about what the stone might be up to, her father had allowed her to read the old accounts and the thing was frightening.  Truthfully, she was far more excited about getting out to finally stretch her wings, and regretted that it took something like this to make it happen.  She loved her father, but she’d allowed him to smother her long enough.  Duke or no duke, to be a good heir and duchess she needed to see the world and how it really worked, to understand her citizens and their lives and challenges, not be locked up in a castle with every need catered for.

He looked up at her, “Do you really think you can find something that a guild master couldn’t?”

She sighed, “Not normally no.  But if the crystal does a good job at hiding and emulating a dungeon, I’ll be the only one that already knows there’s something to find.  In short, I’m hoping they’ll assume what they see is real.  They’re expecting it to be a dungeon, why would they do more than simply rate it?”

He shook his head, “I don’t like it.  But… you’re right, and you’re eighteen.  I could forbid it, but I won’t.  You are also exactly like your mother, so stay safe.  She was always a little too reckless, I was constantly saving her.”

She snorted, “That’s not what she told me dad, but I will.  Be careful that is.”

He said, “One more thing.  This secret is between us.  The other nobles and the church aren’t made up of fools, and they’ll wonder at your sudden freedom, don’t even tell your party your true purpose.  I’ll be accommodating with the guild when they get here, and I’ll spread the rumor I was dragging my feet to prevent you from doing exactly what you’re going to be doing.  They may buy my recent actions as one of a worried overprotective father with a stubborn daughter.”

She laughed, “Good plan.”

He grunted sourly, “Why so surprised, I am a duke after all.”

She snorted, “Night dad,” and left the man if not pleased, at least not paralyzed any longer.  His plan was a good one, but only because it was all completely true.

A few days later she found herself in the throne room and studying the four master adventurers as they were introduced to the court.

Donnell was an older man, and the leader of the group.  He was tall, six feet five at least, and he’d be the one staying and running the guild for this dungeon.  That made sense, since it was a retirement posting of sorts, Donnell was getting too old to adventure, though she wouldn’t want to challenge him or the wicked looking sword at his waist.

Master Ember was the leader of the group going to rate the dungeon.  She was a fire mage, and in her mid-forties at a guess, though still attractive.  She wore red robes and looked very confident.

It was the other two in the group that was a surprise.  She’d never seen an elf before, and now she was looking at two of them.  They were thinner and more willowy than humans, but not as much as she’d thought they’d be.  Ari, was a female light mage who looked way too young to be a master, and the same for the light cleric, Bran.

She thought it was smart that they’d sent two light masters to judge a dark dungeon, she just worried they might be able to pick something up.  Hopefully that wouldn’t happen, and their mandate to guard the crystal wouldn’t be revealed.  The crystal was the kind of power that wars were fought over.

Both Ari and Bran were very attractive, young looking with extremely light blonde hair, blue eyes, and sculpted pointed ears.

She started to feel a little uncomfortable, Donnell was a bit old and he kept checking her out.  She knew she was attractive, but not so much that she’d attracted lecherous stares from old men before.  Perhaps her father had hidden her from that kind of thing?  She had long light brown hair, brown eyes, and a pleasing face.  Her body was more on the athletic side, except for her breasts which were rather prominent for her frame.

The duke said, “Welcome to Tenemin.  Have you had a chance to review the dungeon?”

Donnell replied, “Not yet, we wanted to greet you first, and ask about any provisions you may have before we get started.”

The duke smiled, “You will need to pay a small tax to put up an inn and other buildings, but I have no objections to anything you build out there to support the guild, adventurers, and merchants.  In fact, I’ve given this some consideration the last couple of days, and would be willing to sell the keep to you.”

Donnell looked startled, “The keep?”

The duke nodded, “The land has been empty for generations, and I believe it would make a good headquarters and healing area, once you fortified the entrance of the dungeon that is.  The keep has several large rooms, a kitchen, and of course bedrooms on the second and third floors.  It would also enable you to keep track of things, without your people even needing to go outside.”

Donnell laughed, “I see, and how much does a keep go for nowadays?”

The duke said, “To buy it outright is expensive, but if you wish to simply rent it I’m sure a price to satisfy all could be found.  I’ll make my accountant available to you.”

She looked away, suddenly annoyed, as Donnell checked her out again.  She wasn’t the only one that noticed the old master’s preoccupation.

The duke cleared his throat, “Is there a problem with my daughter?”

Donnell blushed, “My apologies your grace, it’s just I haven’t seen so much magic potential in a mage in a long time.”

Both Amber and Ari nodded, Bran looked like he was bored.  She figured he didn’t like politics, which was fair, because she hated it too.  Not that she had a choice as heir.

The duke frowned, “I see, well then you may be glad to know she’ll be on site much of the time, she has her own group ready to face the dungeon once you’ve rated it and verified its stability past the first floor.”

She looked back, suddenly much more comfortable, now that she knew he wasn’t being a creeper about her body, just her magic.

Donnell bowed, “She will be welcome of course.”

She barely listened to the rest of it, though she pretended she was listening.  She was good at that.  The guild planned to spend the night, and go down tomorrow to rate the dungeon.  If at that time, it was deemed stable and didn’t need to be destroyed, they’d start building an outpost and getting set up.  She imagined it would take another few days before professional adventurers started to show up, but her group as well as other locals would be lining up for a shot almost right away.

She just hoped she was powerful enough for her group to get to the end, if the dungeon was too strong, how could she examine the crystal or look for inconsistencies?  She knew she was a higher-level apprentice, and the court mage had assured her she’d be a journeywoman soon, but would that be enough?  Then again, a stronger dungeon would help her grow as a mage much faster, worse case is it would take her a while to get there.  She hoped.

Chapter Ten

Ari asked, “Do you smell that?”

Ember said, “I don’t smell anything.”

Ari smiled, “Exactly, I thought this was an undead thing, and the keep would stink.  The air smells fresh.”

Bran shrugged, “It wouldn’t be the first dungeon that keeps the air clear, outside of traps.”

Ari nodded, “Yes, but usually not the ones full of undead.  I’m not complaining though, it makes it feasible to use this keep as headquarters.”

Ember pointed out, “It could be as simple as the fact that most dark dungeons don’t have air magic, so can’t clean the air.”

Ember pulled out a device, “We’ll find out soon enough.”

Donnell asked, “So you’re ready to get started?”

Ember nodded, “This shouldn’t take long, unless the dungeon is larger than we believe.”

Donnell grunted, “It’s right next to a city, there’s no way it went unnoticed for long.”

Ember said, “Alright, let’s go.”

I was a little torn as I listened.  Lila had said the white and dark magic layers hid our strong dark aura, so all that was left was a dungeon aura from the outside banded layers.  But these people were master clerics and mages, their job to judge such things.  Would it be enough?

It wasn’t like I had a choice, the only way I could ever figure out who’d put me in this prison, to find out exactly who and what I was, and the only way I’d ever escape, was to grow in power on the outside.  The only real way to do that without taking hundreds of years, or perhaps thousands to slowly grow, was to emulate a dungeon and gain power that way, and thanks to Lila and Ebony I’ve been successful so far.

Even if I could have grown in raw power on the outside slowly, being a dungeon was the only way to gain knowledge, spells, and control over magic.  That was essential for my eventual escape as well, risky or not.  Plus, I didn’t have a choice, as soon as I started growing I was detected, and Ebony found me almost right away.

Even that made me feel guilty, as I was hiding a lot of things from the sexy imp.  Not only that I wasn’t a dungeon, but of Lila’s existence.  Of course, it could be argued I was a dungeon.  It was what I was doing, wasn’t it?  Still, what would happen to her when I escaped, even if it took years.

Ebony said, “I’ll be watching from my place, they shouldn’t disturb it.”

I hoped she was right as I watched them walk down the stairs.

Ember said, “Holy shit, I’m getting increased levels of all magic spheres.”

They paused a moment and Bran muttered a spell, the surge of light magic was huge, and all of them started to glow brightly with a warm white light.

Ember said, “I’m detecting raw air magic use to filter the air.  I’m also recording the level of magic in the skeletons.”

It was almost embarrassing, the three of them just walked through the rooms, all the skeletons simply died as they got near.  The zombie managed to survive long enough to attack, but was incinerated with a wave of Ember’s hand.

I felt… inadequate.

Ember said, “A perfect floor for initiates level three and above.  Even the zombie, as a group fighting together, to teach them how to work together better.  Almost too perfect, even the rewards matched every time, and were different.”

Bran grunted, “I know what you mean.  Let’s check the second floor.”

“What do they mean Ebony?” I asked nervously, it was ridiculous, I could squash them all easily with my power, if of course, I wasn’t imprisoned.

Ebony pouted, and I realized I didn’t call her sexy.

“I don’t know, perhaps you did too good of a job?  Dungeons as far as they know act with instinct, maybe your design shows too much thought?”

I had no idea what to do with that.  Plan more randomly?

They moved quickly through floor two as well, annoyingly pointing out the acid traps, and falling spike traps on the ceiling.  The zombies at least caused them to put out a minimal effort, about the same effort a normal human would use to lift a beer glass.  The skeletons once again were destroyed simply by that spell’s aura.  I wanted to study it, but I couldn’t get close enough to it, not when they were still alive.  Which was likely to be for the rest of their visit.

Ember said, “That knight in the last room brought it up to a mid-level apprentice.”

Ari agreed, “Absolutely, and this enchantment is basic, but not half bad.  Does anyone else think it’s ironic the zombie was wearing armor with a light protective enchantment on it?”

Bran shook his head, “Where do you supposed it learned it, this is a brand new dungeon, and I didn’t read that the men that died in here had enchanted anything.”

Ember snorted, “Look around you Master Bran, this dungeon woke up in a family catacombs underneath a keep of an Earl’s family.  I’d imagine the dungeon found plenty of stuff to study and emulate when it woke up.”

Bran grunted, “Good point, I didn’t think of that.”

I watched as they went down to the third floor.  Of course, it was another slaughter, but I was proud that at least the undead mages got off some spells before they crumbled to dust.  Granted, the light shield they had on stopped the curses and bolts of magic cold.  I just wanted it over with now, so some adventurers I could actually kill would visit.

Ember said, “Undead mages and knights are impressive, and that zombie was a monster, the first modified creature we fought.”

Ari grunted, “yeah, the fire aura on the sword could be nasty, especially with the armor rotting curse on the blade.”

Ember added, “I’m going to say high level apprentice to low level journeymen for floor three.  Shall we continue?”

Bran asked, “Any idea on the levels yet, I’m surprised this wasn’t it.”

Ember shrugged, “According to my readings there are at least a few more floors.  As for having so many, it’s probably because it started out with three for free, the dungeon didn’t do much with the catacombs at all, and had all those corpses to work with.  Probably spent most of its energy on the next three floors.”

Ari noted, “There’s also a second stairway going up, a shortcut?”

Ember shrugged, “Looks like it, we’ll note it down.”

That was fair, it was exactly what happened.  I was a little nervous about their reaction to the demons.  I didn’t have long to wait, they went through the imps quickly even if they lasted longer than the skeletons by dodging and keeping their distance.

When they walked into the last room they froze.

Bran gasped, “Succubus and incubus?  In a dungeon?”

Ari snickered, “Anyone hungry.”

Ember glared.

Ari said innocently, “I meant the food Em, it looks kind of good.  I’m not detecting poison either.”

The succubus was posing for, and staring at Bran, while the incubus focused on the two ladies.  They were both lying on separate beds, naked.

Bran frowned, “This isn’t good, no adventurer is going to want to risk their soul, if not for the aura on our shields we may have been feeling the urge to use those beds.  Plus, this room looks like a safe room, it could fool a lot of people.”

Ember frowned, “Let’s not jump to conclusions, Ari, trap one of them so we can do an analysis of their bindings.”

Ari muttered a quick spell, and a light shot out and a cage of light surrounded the succubus.  Ember waved her hand as the incubus lunged at them, it’s claws in the lead as he realized they weren’t going to fall for it, and he burst into flames.  I cringed a little as he screamed while being slowly incinerated.

Ember said, “Bran, you’re up.”

Bran muttered, “I don’t see the point.”

Ember growled, “What is wrong with you today?  They could be bound to prevent them from devouring souls, and could just be set up to take the life energy.  That’s the fucking point.”

Bran flinched.

Ari said, “He was dumped.  Saori gave him an ultimatum to quit adventuring, and he chose us over her.”

Bran glared at Ari.

Ari said unapologetically, “Sorry, but she’s our leader and deserves to know why you have your head up your ass today.”

Bran grumbled under his breath as he approached the caged succubus, and cast a light spell that I didn’t recognize.  I was able to analyze that one though, as it hit the succubus it was in my domain.  It examined the bond and links I had bound into the demons I summoned.  It was impressive and I memorized the way the magic was organized so I could break it down later.  The more I learned, the more I could both copy and create.

Bran sighed, “You’re right, sex with her would kill someone, but not take their soul.  She’s very tightly bound.”

Ember smirked, “Good, I’d have hated destroying this dungeon because you were being lazy.”

I shivered.

She continued, “Same level of toughness I think, high apprentice, low journeyman.”

Ari agreed, “It’s like it wanted to introduce demons and tactic changes, but at the same challenge level to give people a chance to adjust.  I’m pretty impressed so far.”

Ebony pulled my attention and said, “Things seem to be going well so far.”

I replied, “Thanks to your advice sexy.”

Ebony beamed and posed rather erotically.  Her tits were practically spilling out.  That’s when I noticed she changed her outfit, it was far more seductive now.

“Love the new look.”

She winked and looked very pleased with herself.  I wondered if it was a demon thing, or if she was actually developing feelings for me, a crystal.  It sounds weird, but I had to say I liked the little demoness more and more as time went on.

I moved my attention back up.  I wouldn’t exactly say that the fifth floor challenged them, but it kept them focused and on their toes as the imps sniped them from hidden positions with spells, and the basic warrior demons used not only swords, but bows and javelins from a distance in the large room.

I wouldn’t say it was an obstacle course or labyrinth, but it was a very large room with lots of walls, turns, and hidden nooks.  Although split up into sections, it could almost be said that level five was one big ass room.  There were also some traps that caused walls to collapse behind them, and demons were set up to ambush so that they were pinned and couldn’t retreat without first moving forward and finding another path back to retreat.

Still, I highly doubted I was ever in any danger of actually killing them, or even scratching them.  The spells and attacks they used with just a little more effort were frighteningly powerful, often killing in one strike.  They hadn’t even broken a sweat.

The large demon warrior at the end died quickly as well, but it took them two spells to do it.

Ari said, “That was a blast,” and then giggled.

Bran smiled at her, “That was kind of fun, sorry I’ve been such a drag.”

Ember said, “This one was a jump, but not an unreasonable one.  I’d say it would be a challenge for a group of mid-journeyman.  Rewards aren’t lacking, and not too much either.  Let’s go down.”

When they got to the bottom Ember said, “Okay, this is the last floor.  Perhaps these readings explain some things, I’m seeing a powerful water magic source below us, and a very powerful light magic source.”

Ari tilted her head, “Have you picked up the dark magic source yet?”

Ember shook her head, “No, the catacombs itself is one, but it isn’t that strong.  Let’s not worry about it yet.”

The sixth floor was normal rooms again, but were still rather large and had obstacles in them to hide behind for cover.  There were the warriors again, plus the succubae for distraction, and full blown demon mages who could cast various and complicated spells, instead of imps who just had a few natural magic abilities to cast basic spells.

I worried a bit, what would they think about the dark magic source.  If they found it the jig would be up, since I was the dark magic source myself.  That made me worry, how hard would they look?

It didn’t take them long, but they were quite careful about it as they finished up the floor and faced my twelve-foot-tall magically modified warrior, accompanied by two mages.

Ember sighed and stretched her neck, “Well, that was high journeyman for sure.  Where’s the dungeon core?”

Ari pointed, “The crypt?  It’s the only thing down here related to the catacombs.”

Ember nodded and stared for a minute, “I’m still not picking up the dark magic source.  Even if it was intrinsic to the dungeon I should be picking up its core.  Let’s open it up and take a look.”

They didn’t have warriors with them and for a minute I hoped they’d fail to move the heavy slab of stone, but the three of them managed to push it far enough to look within.  I felt strangely naked and vulnerable.  Still, it was good to know some dungeon cores had their magic intrinsically bound, maybe I’d get out of this yet.

Bran grunted, “Would you look at that, that might explain it.  Have you ever seen a dungeon do this before?”

Ari shook her head, “You think the other bands of elemental magic are hiding the dark energy source within?  I suppose it’s possible, and no I’ve never seen this before.”

Ember said, “I agree, the core of the dungeon is dark, yet it was born with all affinities and worked out this band thing.  It must be interfering with my readings.”

I mentally sighed in relief.  They were right, except of course, that they were assuming the dark energy core was much weaker on the inside than it really was.  I knew that because they weren’t freaking out.

Bran frowned, “Still, is this a new kind of dungeon?  Every other dungeon absorbs and uses magic like a mortal, transmuting it to life energy as it’s absorbed, and of course transmuting back when they use it.”

Ember shrugged, “It’s ingenious though, because it isn’t losing any energy in the transmutation.  In order to do it, it has the crystalline structure of six different elemental stones, all at the same time.  Something I would have said was impossible just two minutes ago.”

Bran asked, “So, what should we do?”

Ember said, “Make that information top secret, or every mage that studies elemental stones will want to steal it.  As far as I know no known elemental stones have ever had more than one sphere.  Let the grandmaster make that decision.  Maybe he’ll send someone to study it in place.  As for the dungeon, it’s one of the most stable starting dungeons I’ve ever seen.  We’d be foolish to mess with it.  The guild money counters would kill us.”

Ari laughed cynically, “Too true.”

Hmm, I supposed that meant the innate knowledge of structures to hold the different elemental spheres of magic wasn’t inborn to a dungeon.  What the hell was I that it was inborn to me?  If I had a body, I’d have sighed in relief when they pushed the tomb slab closed.

I was excited as they left to go report, soon my dungeon would be filled with greedy humans wanting power and money, and of course, I would reap the benefits.

Chapter Eleven

Carlton muttered a quick spell and the door, walls, and windows glowed white.  Selwyn, Diana, and Cory looked startled by the strong privacy spell he’d cast.

Cory said, “I thought we worked out the problem with the duke?”

Carlton shook his head, “Maybe.  It’s possible that rumor was true, but why not just open the dungeon and keep her at home.  There’s more there, especially with his daughter suddenly hanging around there all the time.  Her cousin and the others she’s purported to be forming a party with, should be here in a week or two, and I think they’re up to something, but that’s not what’s most important right now.”

Diana asked, “And that would be?”

“Highest Verin has sent his own team, they’re already here with the latest dispatch.  He is disbelieving of the glowing report the guild sent out and they’re launching their own investigation.  They’re determined to find any indication of instability, and then pressure the duke to call in a dungeon killer team.  I don’t trust it, and I don’t understand how he can be so sure from so far away, so something else is going on.  Verin has always been an asshole but even he agrees a stable dark dungeon is a godsend.  Mark my words, this mischief has something to do with that damned group from Jennesar.  Though, I have no idea what it could it be, or rather, why another country would care at all about a dungeon in another kingdom, even if it is dark.”

Selwyn asked, “And you want us to do what about this crown city team?  We can’t refute or accuse them of anything, even with proof.  The highest would kill us, or replace you at the least, if this is true.”

Diana sighed figuring it out first, “You want me to leak this to the princess?”

Carlton pondered that a moment, “That might work, we can’t expose them if they try and set up the dungeon, or perform some other mischief, but Catalina would eat them for breakfast, even without her father, and Verin wouldn’t be able to do shit in retaliation, not if he likes his neck where it is.  I hear the king is rather fond of his cousin and family.”

Selwyn smiled, “It also may make her do something to reveal what her and her father are up to.”

Carlton considered that and decided it was doubtful, “Maybe.  It depends on what it is, and if we spook her.  I’m not even sure it’s a problem anymore.  It seems like more of an old secret they’d like to stay buried, rather than some kind of power play.  After all, they’ve blocked off that estate for centuries now, when they should have given it to someone by now.  Maybe I should do it myself.”

Cary asked, “Do what yourself sir?”

Carlton grinned, “Talk to the princess, and let something slip.”

Diana asked, “Your excuse for being there?”

Carlton’s grin turned smug, “Why, to re-consecrate the chapel above the catacombs of course.  Boduna’s blessings upon her children.”

They all smiled wide…

It was far more complicated a spell than I’d ever formed before.  Without just specifying the greatest and pointing it at an emotion or wish of some kind, things got complicated.  The mind was a very complicated thing.  Still, I’d used the core of the analysis spell I’d pinched from Master Bran.  Then I tied it into the effects of the mind trap.  After that, I just had to define a great number of options based on the analysis.

It’d taken me many days, while I kept track and kept on with everything else.  Regardless, if Lila ever forgave me we’d be able to try again.  Or rather, she would, unless she consents to me joining her again.  I knew that was doubtful, and perhaps foolish, but I still hoped.

The dungeon had opened quickly as the guild moved into the keep, and a tavern and marketplace were being built swiftly.  A lot of brave but stupid local people had died to fuel my rising power.  I realized of course, after Ember’s and the other masters’ conversation, why I had so much trouble with absorbing a whole life force.  A normal dungeon would simply take that life force into their own, and then transmute it at need to magic.  I couldn’t do that at all, since taking in that much energy could potentially add enough energy pressure to my core that it would shatter the crystal into pieces.  Plus, that much energy would take forever to feed through the small imperfection in my crystal lattice prison.

No, as with so much else I did as a dungeon, I’d have to fake it and find another way.

I found in the past I could hold on to it, and transmute it quickly to magic, and either load up my crystal, or use it immediately.  The problem was I couldn’t just hold on to it until I had room, the longer it took, the more life energy escaped from my grasp.  That wasn’t an option.

Eventually, I would have enough layers and storage capacity to easily transmute not just one life, but many at once, but until then I had to come up with other alternatives.  I’d considered just building levels with them, carving them out in the ground, until I was big enough, but leave the new floors empty, unconnected, and without monsters until I could expand.

I’d decided against that however, because I wanted the life energy to supplement what I could hold in the layers outside my prison for an emergency.  So… I got a little creative.  If I couldn’t hold life energy like a normal dungeon, I decided to get someone else to do it for me.

So, I summoned and bound a succubus who is currently in an unconnected room on the sixth floor, completely locked in.  I’ve been channeling the life force for her to hold, kind of like an elemental stone can accept, store, and channel elemental energy for a mage.  It works, mostly, but it had an unforeseen side effect.  Apparently, a succubus with a lot of extra life force energy becomes rather… randy and insatiable, more than normal I mean.  She’s been masturbating for the last thirty-four hours, and shows no sign of stopping.

She’s not complaining, so I’m not overly worried about it.

Whenever I get below my thirty percent threshold, I just draw on her and convert a little energy at a time.  If my magical saturation gets above seventy percent or so, I channel any new life energy to the succubus when someone dies.  So far, the loss in the trade has been extremely minimal.  The largest flaw is if she’s banished, or manages to kill herself, is that I’d lose most of it, or be forced to go with plan A and carve out a bunch of rooms and tunnels I’m not ready for.

Which was better than completely losing it.

There was a group of adventurers I was tracking, as for the rest of the dungeon I was getting good at letting my subconscious handle things.  Replacing mobs and loot magic on them was almost automatic, or at least took no real thought.

The group of four, two warriors, a mage, and a cleric, were fighting the fifth-floor boss.  I’d been tracking them for a while, and they were fun to watch.  I’d almost killed a couple of them multiple times, and if it wasn’t for their damned cleric healing them I would have.

Still, it was then that my attention was drawn to something odd.  Two of my skeletons were above ground.  While technically a part of my dungeon and reach, no mobs should be upstairs at all.  It was a rule if I wanted to live.  Ebony had made it clear that only rogue dungeons expand above ground, so while my senses reached up there and I could have done virtually anything to the keep, I just didn’t.  There was a side effect to that as well that I enjoyed, I could eavesdrop, watch them, and even read their correspondence.  The guild had no idea about it either.

Now, if only a powerful Earth, Water, and Air mage would move into the guild rooms, I’d be able to pilfer the spells from their spell books if they left them behind in their rooms at any time.  So far that hadn’t happened.  But I just got off on a tangent, I’d just felt something weird, my skeletons were up there and they shouldn’t be.

My conscious attention raced up there, and I was suddenly looking at four paladins, and a cleric that didn’t look familiar to me at all.  They looked nothing like the fresh and weak paladins they’d sent in to the first floor for training recently.

They were also carrying two sacks, with two of my skeletons in them who were frozen in light spells.  I had no idea what they were up to, but it couldn’t be good.  They even had some kind of invisibility spell over it, so the guild people wouldn’t notice they carried them.  I panicked when they got to the door and were almost out of my reach, and with a thought I pulled the dark magic out of them.  The sacks collapsed as they turned into two inert piles of bones.

The five men cried out in alarm, dumb bastards.  They begged off and left quickly when the nearby guild folks inquired if they could help.

What the hell was that about, and what happened if someone that could create portals tried the same thing?  That bothered me for quite a while as I mulled it over.

Finally, I changed the magic again, which was quite annoying actually.  I set it up so if my undead left the dungeon the spells would fail.  That meant I had to redo every single type of undead spell, and every variant for the alternate rewards.  It was a total pain in the ass, metaphorically speaking of course, since I didn’t have one.

For the demons it was easier, I just modified the bindings set on my summoning circle so they were banished if they ever left the dungeon.  That worked for all of the different types at once, imps, succubae, incubi, warriors, and mages, so it was much easier.

Regardless, if they wanted to study my mobs, they’d have to do it inside the dungeon.  If they were up to something else, then they were now out of luck.  Bastards.

It was hard work being a dungeon, since I’m not a dungeon.  Just an imprisoned and banished being of unknown origin, who happens to play with magic like a potter shapes clay, and have the ability of creation.

Ebony said, “What are you hiding from me?”

I knew Ebony wasn’t stupid.  Imps are very smart, and I imagined dungeon imps were at the top that way.  Still, I was startled at the accusation.

“Hiding sexy?  Me?”

Ebony snorted, “I thought the way you held magic instead of life force was weird, but now you’re using a succubus like a damned life force battery.  So… what’s going on?  You aren’t a normal dungeon.”

“Battery?”

Ebony scoffed, “Wrong dimension, stop dodging the question.”

“You’re really sexy when you’re mad, I mean more than usual.”

She just glared, no pose at all, damn it.

“I don’t know.”

Ebony snorted, “You don’t know?”

I was powerful enough to squash her with a thought, I wasn’t even sure the bond we formed could stop me, I was almost positive I could transcend the bond with an act of will.  The problem was that I genuinely liked, and had affection for Ebony.  She was a wonderful dungeon imp, playful, knowledgeable, and I just couldn’t hurt her, much less destroy her.  Plus, all the guilt from hiding the truth from her in the first place, and I was getting lonely.  Lila still wasn’t talking to me.

I confessed, about everything, like verbal diarrhea I couldn’t hold it in.  Waking in a prison without memories.  Not knowing what I was, how I’d hidden on accident and why I felt like a dungeon at all to her.  About Lila being in my head and giving me enough knowledge to fake it by absorbing her magical expertise.  I even told her how much I cared about her, and I did care.  Then I told her my still mostly unformed plans.  Gain power and knowledge until I could escape my prison, and either claim revenge on my jailor and my own life, or simply forge a new one.

I didn’t know what path I’d take, how could I know my future path until I knew the path that led here?

Call me a sucker, but I trusted the adorable sexy mini-demoness.  It had even occurred to me more than once to try out my new spell on her before Lila, and to join the party in her head.  I cared about them both, and yes, I also very much missed the physical sensations.

More than that, there was something in me that claimed them as mine.

Ebony trembled, “And what about me?  What happens to me when you escape?”

I wasn’t sure, and I’d been thinking about that for a while actually.  I did have a few ideas that I’d narrowed it down to however, and on a whim decided to let her pick from those.

“It’s your choice sexy, and I would have offered this when the time was right, I wouldn’t have just abandoned you, I swear it.  You have three choices.  You can stay here, I may break off a small piece of my consciousness to keep the dungeon going, and we’d still be connected.  My will is surprisingly vast, and it would be like I never left.  The second choice is that you can leave with me, and serve in some other fashion.  I know that’s rather vague, but for now, so is my future, so I can’t really say what that would be.  Third, I can break the bond, and you can leave me to find a real dungeon, but in that case, I would bind you to keep my secrets.  I would also miss you.”

Was I foolish to bare myself to the little imp?  I wasn’t sure, but it hurt a bit when she said she had to think about it, and went to sulk in her home.  I was hoping she’d pick option two.

But I couldn’t blame her.  Now the two closest to me, the only two people I knew really, both sexy demonesses that served me, weren’t talking to me.  To be fair, they’d be required to if I demanded it, but that wouldn’t happen.  I wasn’t an asshole, or at least, not that big of one.

Just… great.

Chapter Twelve

Catalina smiled and tilted her head as she measured Carlton across the table.

The last few days have been interesting for her, she’d gotten some quarters in the half-finished inn, and she’d reviewed the reports on the dungeon.  As a low level journeywoman she thought the first couple of levels in the dungeon would probably be easy, even solo.  She wasn’t foolish enough to try though, the power levels were just guidelines.  Without backup, doing something stupid or being caught by surprise could very easily kill someone.  So, she waited.  After she’d sent word accepting her cousin’s offer, she expected it to take a week or two before they arrived.

In the meantime, she’d been ingratiating herself with the guild, and getting to know the other adventurers a bit.  So far, as much as she could tell, no one suspected it wasn’t a true dungeon, or had guessed at the true power of the crystal beneath their feet.  She knew the truth, but started to wonder if maybe they should just leave it alone as long as it behaved itself, what was the harm?  They were even getting riches and power out of it.  She knew that argument wouldn’t impress her father though, so she planned to do the best she could regardless.

She’d also practiced her magic, a lot.  Almost all the time really, and it was having secondary effects on her life she hadn’t foreseen.  She wondered if her mother had the same issue, unfortunately her mother had died before she turned ten, and they’d never had those kinds of conversations.  There was no really polite way to say it, she walked around constantly aroused, moist in her center, and her nipples positively ached.  She was horny, all the time, and she had no outlet besides her own fingers at night, behind a curtain of air magic so the whole inn along with the workmen wouldn’t hear her screams.

Were all mages like that when they channeled magic and practiced for hours a day?  She wasn’t sure, but she suspected it was the truth.  It would explain a lot since adventurers were rather a randy lot, and being a princess sure as hell wasn’t an exception.  She wondered if that’s why her father hadn’t wanted her to pursue this course, and then cut off that train of thought as too disturbing.

It wasn’t just arousing, constantly channeling magic made her body more sensitive all around, made her feel strong and alive, it was just that next to those arousing effects, the rest of it hardly even registered.

Which brought her to checking out Carlton.  She was just eighteen, and he was fourteen years older, but he was a very handsome and well-built man.  She also imagined at that age he knew exactly how to use what he had to please a woman.  He was also the high cleric, so knew how to be discreet, and how lonely it could be at the top.  Also, he was a man of ambition, and wouldn’t give it up to follow her around like a puppy dog.

Really, he was a perfect candidate for her to have a little fling with.

Except, the man was completely ignoring her signals, if she tried flirting any harder she’d look like a desperate whore on a street corner right before sunrise.  That wasn’t a step she was willing to take.

Wait, what did he just say?

“I’m sorry, what did you just say Carlton?  My mind wandered.”

Did he not think her attractive enough, or was he just that damned clueless?

Carlton cleared his throat, “Right, I said that it was rather odd that Verin sent a five-man team to evaluate the dungeon.  He seems almost obsessed about it, and doesn’t believe the reports.  Total nonsense.  I wonder if he’s listening to the envoy from… never mind my worries, I probably shouldn’t be talking about it, but the man frustrates me sometimes.”

Her mind ran through what he said, and several scenarios ran through her mind, the most likely one was that the highest in the capitol knew something, and knew it wasn’t a dungeon.  And if she’d read him right, Jennesar knows as well.  But that makes no sense at all, how could they?

The strangest thing was that she didn’t think Carlton knew at all.

She shrugged nonchalantly, and stopped herself when she went to flick her hair.  Not going to happen, if the bastard doesn’t want her, she won’t embarrass herself further.

“I understand, it’s easy to talk to you as well, someone accustomed to the pressure of ruling, yet not beholden to each other for the most part.  Do you believe they may stir up trouble?”

He shook his head, way too quickly, “Of course not Catalina, just internal church politics, I shouldn’t have bugged you with it at all.”

She smiled at his subtle confirmation, she’d have to keep an eye on them then, and perhaps get word to her father.  His words said one thing, but if she was sure of anything, the high cleric of Tenemin was not that bad of a liar.

“So, do you have plans, I mean what brings you out of the city and over here, surely it wasn’t merely for my company over lunch?”

Oh goddess, she wanted the ground to open and swallow her up.  Had she really just said that?

He said, “A duty I’m afraid, but a joyous one.  The temple in the keep, I’ve gotten permission to sanctify it in my goddess’s name.  Lunch with you was just a happy coincidence.”

She thought fast, and decided it was the other way around.  Carlton must be playing some political game with the highest, and was using her as one of his pawns.  Fortunately, he knew less than she did, and she really appreciated that tidbit of information.  Still, it was clear he didn’t want her.

“I’ll leave you too it then Carlton, I enjoyed lunch.”

He bowed his head, and she got up and walked away as calmly as she could.

Carlton blew out his breath, and picked up the pitcher of ale and got a refill.  There was no way he could get up right now, his dick was so hard it would tent his robes.  He’d seen that look in young adventurers before, and Catalina was a real beauty.  It took all his self-control not to follow her up to her room and take advantage of what she’d clearly been offering, but he knew that would be a mistake.

For one, he was too old for her, and she just wanted a quick fuck.  Second, the duke would hear about it, and probably send an assassin his way for deflowering his little girl.  He was sure the old man had spies around here keeping an eye on her.  Fuck that.  Third, and probably most importantly, he remembered her as a little girl, and couldn’t get past it, which was probably stupid.

At least, his dick thought it was stupid.

The other thing he was worried about was the princess had given something away, just like Selwyn thought she might.  She was a better politician than that usually, showing a blank face.  But the girl had hormones coming out of her pores right now, and had actually looked very worried about something for a moment.

That meant Verin and the envoy from Jennesar were on to something, which made no sense.  The guild simply doesn’t make mistakes about dungeons.  Not that he’d ever heard anyway.  It was also extremely annoying, because it meant he was the only one in the damn dark about what it was.

He finished his ale and got up, then walked over to the keep and inside the chapel.  He smiled as he walked in, he’d sent a couple of acolytes over early this morning, and they’d cleaned out the dust and the detritus.  They’d also set up the altar.  It was a simple flat table made of marble, and behind that was a plinth, with a large statue of Boduna, the goddess of order.  There were seven other smaller statues equally spaced around the large one, so that they didn’t offend any other gods or goddesses in the pantheon.

The temple would be his goddess’s, but all from the pantheon would be welcomed in its hallowed hall.  Their church was the church of light, not just of his goddess.  He cleared all of it out of his mind.  His inappropriate lust for the sexy willowy princess, his worry about the dungeon itself now, and about what those idiots in Jennesar and the crown city were doing.

He let it all go, and embraced his devotion and love for his goddess.

He was at peace, and he was ready.  He started to chant the ritual…

Chapter Thirteen

I felt the strangest thing.  A presence that was both very familiar, but yet, not.  It was similar to something I’d felt before, and even if I couldn’t remember when, or what it was, I knew this was different.  My attention focused up above, right outside my dungeon, and what I saw shocked me to my core.

There was a woman, she was young, beautiful, and had ageless eyes.  Her body was perfectly formed, and after what I felt with Lila, desirable.  But it was her presence that took my breath away.  She was glowing, and her hand was on a young man’s shoulder, but I knew he couldn’t feel her touch, or see her form, but he could feel her presence.

I looked at the altar, and then back to her.

“Do they know it’s wrong?”

She laughed, “No, and don’t fix it young one.  The goddess of order is a stern older a woman, a mother figure, it is what they need.  If they knew my true form, any god’s true form, they would be swamped with impure thoughts.  That is not our purpose.”

I felt afraid, yet not.

“Do you know what I am, who I am?”

She smiled, “Yes Nurien, I do.  But I may not interfere, that would cause problems and ripples you can’t even conceive of.  I will confirm what you already suspect however.  Your imprisonment and banishment has weakened you greatly, yet it has in some ways made your stronger.  Beings from the higher planes are not allowed to interfere on the mortal plane, save through those that worship us, yet right now you live on the mortal plane and have no constraints that way.”

I had guessed that, but the majority of my power was trapped anyway, and if I broke the prison I was sure I would die, or at least most of me would die.  I might save a small part of me in a human form, but this world wasn’t meant to support a body with all my power in it.

She nodded, “We call them avatars.  A human form with a small portion of our power, which will return to us once we wish it, or after the form is destroyed.  Until you learn how to return to where you belong and can build a body to support all of your nature, you must be careful.  There are powers on this world that can destroy you if you act in folly.  It won’t be easy, the road is long, and there are no guarantees.”

“I thought you couldn’t tell me anything.”

She smiled, “I told you I couldn’t give you knew information or help you get home.  I haven’t said anything you didn’t already believe, I’m just confirming it for you.”

He asked, “Why?”

She shrugged, “Let’s just say our families don’t get along, and leave it at that.  I believe what was done to you is wrong, and could have drastic consequences in this mortal plane.”

That was interesting, even if unenlightening.  It was also good to know I could create a human body if I wanted, an avatar as she called it, but something told me it wasn’t time.  I was strong in my crystal, but very weak on the outside yet.  Anyone that wished my destruction could destroy my shell easily if they were powerful enough.  I couldn’t afford to create new enemies yet, and I would if I was discovered.  I had a feeling I had enough of those already, for now.

They’d probably die in a revenge strike before my energy broke down, but what would be the point?

She said, “If you have any more questions, ask them.  The ritual is almost complete, and even my spirit may not tarry after that.”

“You said beings of power can’t act on the mortal plane without worshipers to work through.  Is my family trying to finish me off through theirs?  Is it because I’m a dark entity?”

She smiled, “Sorry, I can’t verify what you aren’t sure of.  Be careful little one, and you will find a way through.”

She looked almost regretful when she faded away.  I wondered if that was regret for the way I’d been treated, or if it was because she couldn’t help me hurt the ones she didn’t like.  In the end, I didn’t suppose it mattered, at least she wasn’t my enemy.

I returned my focus to the dungeon.

Over the next couple of weeks there were a few deaths, I wasn’t really disappointed there weren’t more.  I enjoyed the challenge of challenging those in my little realm.  As the numbers built up, I also noticed I was gaining the elemental magic faster, while the adventurers seemed to get better quickly.

It was mutually beneficial.  The mages would get better faster from casting within such a highly concentrated magical area, and I was able to absorb the magical left overs for lack of a better term, of their spells.  Even the warriors benefited, the heightened magic seemed to help them build muscle and speed faster, as if the magic was seeping into their bodies and effecting subtle and slow changes.

I also learned a paralyzing spell, and a few offensive water and earth spells that had a duration effect.  For the spells that simply exploded out and expired, I couldn’t really read them and learn them, but any spell that lingered on one of my mobs became mine.

With the magical pieces and configurations that I’d unraveled to their simplest form, I’d managed to create quite a few new enchantments.  Partial invisibility, increase the speed of a weapon wielder, dispel light magic, which was one of my favorites, and imbuing weapons with the elements.  So far on that last one just fire, earth, light, and dark.  Water and Air still eluded me, I didn’t have enough spells yet.

Inevitably, those few that had died didn’t have anything all that great to learn from, but I still learned and gained a bunch of power for it.  I also took to heart what Ebony told me, and tried to be as unpredictable as possible within predictability, if that makes any sense.  I kept the challenges at the same level, but I was forever moving things around, and making new traps they hadn’t seen before.

From what I could tell, the guild reports didn’t go into the details all that much, just generalizations and power levels.  They didn’t want to reduce the challenge either, since it would merely stunt the growth of the people not learning for themselves.

I’d discovered though, that adventurers love to talk, and tell stories, in full detail while getting drunk at the inn.  So, I changed it all up daily at the very least, only the large details remained the same.

“Nurien.”

I froze for a second, “Yes Lila?”

She said, “Swear to me you’ll never tell anyone what happened.”

I replied, “I swear.  Do you forgive me?”

She sighed, “Yes damn you, I do.  I know you didn’t do it on purpose.”

“Ebony knows about you.”

She replied acidly, “Knows what exactly?”

“Nothing about that, she just knows you exist, and that you helped me with spells and pretending to be a dungeon.  She figured it out about a week ago, and she hasn’t talked to me since I came clean.”

She laughed throatily, “You have a way with the ladies, don’t you?”

“I try?” I said more as a question.  I did try, but I was a crystal, and far from understanding the female mind.

I decided not to mention the new spell until she started to get waspish again.  That might sound overly manipulative, but it was more cowardice.

She snickered, “You really do, don’t you Nurien?  What are you, you aren’t a fell creature, that much I can tell.”

“Still don’t know, except Boduna told me I was a higher being, although not what kind.”

I could feel her shock.

“I chatted with her when they consecrated the upstairs temple in her name.”

She replied, “I see, what else have you done.”

“I missed you.  And… hold on.”

I simply ran through everything minus the minutiae in my mind of the last couple of weeks, minus what was in my partitioned mind of course, and the spell work for a new mind spell.  It was easy to run the memories at high speed in my public mind.

Lila sighed, “Okay, that’s a whole lot.  Are you going to use me in your plans?”

“Do you want to be?”

She replied, “Why not?  Just get me out of here.  I’m already your bound servant, why ask?”

“You know why.”

She teased, “Because you care about me, an evil slutty demoness?”

“Something like that.  Oh, fuck it, yes, I do care.  But there’s also the fact that it isn’t going to be easy, I need to depend on you without constantly watching my back.”

She said, “If you make me a new body, I’ll follow you anywhere, and protect you to the best of my ability, my word on the bond.”

I was shocked by that blanket statement, because the bond wouldn’t allow her to lie at all.  That meant, she actually meant it.

She smirked, in our minds anyway, “I kind of like you too.  But there’s also the matter of your strength, I’m planning to ride your coattails to power and glory, so I can watch all my enemies burn and suffer in damnation.”

Now it made sense, perfect sense.

She giggled a little naughtily…

It was only a day later, when I watched Ebony come out her house, and she walked over.

Ebony asked, “If I have to decide now, I’ll take the first option.  But… I might pick option two when you know what my new potential role will be.  I’m sorry I sulked so long, but I feel like such a failure for not noticing sooner.  It’s just… you make an amazing dungeon, and it blinded me to the rest of it.”

“You don’t have to decide now, but when I leave for the first time it will probably be the other way around, I’ll leave as just a small part of me.  Either way, we’ll still be connected, and you can offer me advice.”

She nodded, and smiled tentatively.  Was she really that sweet, or was I just a sucker?

Well, I was fairly sure I was a sucker, since I cared about two demonesses, so hopefully it was both.  I’d already decided if she did follow me out of here, I’d give her a power upgrade.  Things would be dangerous.  I didn’t mention it though, perhaps I was a fool, but I wanted her to follow me for other reasons, not power…

Chapter Fourteen

Catalina was nervous, which was ridiculous.  She was a princess, heir apparent to be duchess of Tenemin in the kingdom of Nysten.  The group was due any moment, she knew Jerrold of course, her cousin.  He was a mountain of a man at six feet two, brown hair, hazel eyes, and enough muscles to wield an axe with the speed most wielded a dagger.

He didn’t worry her at all, they’d been friends since before they could walk.

It was Sienna and Suzy she didn’t know.

At least she’d worked off her frustration as best she could alone.  She’d adapted one of her air spells, which had been quite a remarkable experience.  She also hadn’t done a lick of magic today yet, and was feeling mostly like her old self.  Just a little bit excited, but nothing too distracting.

She was wearing some blue mage robes the color of the sky, that while conservative showed enough of the curves underneath to be attractive.  It wasn’t just meeting them for the first time today either, they would be going into the dungeon first thing tomorrow, and she was very excited about that.

She smiled as they walked in, and stood to give her cousin a hug, he looked exactly the same as he did when she saw him last year.  When they released each other, she smiled at the two women.

Gerald waved at the woman in red robes, and she had on ruby earrings.  The young woman was petite, a few inches shorter than the princess, but she could tell the woman had a nice curvy body.  Curvy enough to make her a little jealous, but at the same time, her chest was bigger.  Sienna also had the most luxurious and long red hair she’d ever seen, and warm light brown eyes.

Gerald said, “This is Sienna.  Sienna, this is my cousin, princess Catalina.”

Sienna gaped, and she felt uncomfortable for a moment.

“Don’t worry about the title Sienna, and please call me Cat.”

Sienna slowly relaxed, “Right, the title, what title?  Nice to meet you Cat, your bumbling cousin has told me all about you, but he failed to mention your mage aura is larger than most master’s.”

She blushed, “Well, I’m at Journeywoman level one right now, I don’t have the spell knowledge or control yet, or the age to qualify as an adept, much less a master.”

Sienna grinned and gave her a once over, “He also didn’t tell me how gorgeous you are.”

She laughed nervously, her initial impression of shy obviously completely wrong.

Gerald cleared his throat, “Cat, this is Suzy.  She’s a cleric of Lana, goddess of logic.”

Suzy wore a white robe, and was a couple of inches taller than she was.  The cleric had long golden blonde hair, blue eyes, and a body that quite honestly put both her and Sienna to shame.  In her opinion anyway.  Suzy had both Sienna’s curves, and her fuller breasts.  She also had the face of an angel, and looked extremely shy, so she didn’t try the compliment approach to breaking the ice.

Cat smiled tentatively, “Nice to meet you Suzy.  Goddess of logic?”

Suzy smirked, “Everyone asks me that, because I look like an innocent airhead, right?”

She giggled, “I didn’t say that?”

Suzy winked, but then blushed and turned away, as if disconcerted by her own boldness.

“I’ve got a knack for sensing patterns, and the ordered logic of seemingly random nature.  That doesn’t mean I don’t follow my heart.”

Catalina grinned, “Where are my manners?  I’m just excited you all got here, have a seat and the first round is on me.”

Jerrold sat with a return grin, “I knew I loved you cousin.”

She snorted, “Next round is on you.”

Jerrold laughed, “Fine, fine.  Just so you know, Suzy is the only one of us not a journeyman yet, she’s apprentice level five, which is more than good enough.  Especially since she’s a witch at finding traps and ambushes with that logic of hers, not to mention she’s our healer, so we’ll be the ones out in front.”

Sienna snorted, “No, she’ll be between or behind Cat and I, you’ll be out front mister axe man.”

She got jealous at first as they flirted, she wanted someone too.  Actually, the way things were going she needed someone, even if it was just a special friend, something she’d never had, or even wanted before.  But as she watched them joke around she realized she wasn’t getting that vibe.  No, it was him and Suzy that must be knocking boots, Suzy was quiet throughout the evening since she was shy, but they shared enough significant looks that she knew it was true.

She realized Sienna was just a huge flirt, with everyone apparently, including her.  Which wasn’t a surprise, she should have known her first impression was off, no fire mage was shy, the element lent itself toward passion.

Of course, the proof was at the end of the night.

Sienna asked, “You need a roomy Cat?  These two will be knocking boots, something I don’t need to see at all.”

She laughed, “Fine, I guess I can share.”

All she could think was, that thank the goddess she didn’t need to take the edge off tonight, but what would she do tomorrow after the dungeon?  Add in the fear and adrenaline to high magic use, and she was going to be a hot mess when they left the dungeon tomorrow…

Cat was nervous, yet very excited as they entered the dungeon the next day.  She also figured her out of control large air bolts would come in handy in the coming battles.  That wasn’t all she was good at though, she knew many spells, and cast an air shield around each member of her party, while Suzy did the same with a light shield.

Sienna asked, “Air shield?”

Cat nodded, “Think of it like a parry instead of a block.  It doesn’t have the stopping power of an earth shield, but anything but a direct and very strong hit will be pushed to the side.”

She also cast a speed spell at her cousin, Jerrold would be able to move and dodge faster.  It wasn’t much help for a spell caster, but perfect for a melee fighter.  Jerrold also wore plate armor, and although he did have a nasty looking double handed axe, with a very large curved blade on one side, and a pointed spike on the other, he was actually wielding a spiked mace at the moment.

They’d decided last night that would make a better weapon for the skeletons, and he’d pull out the axe when they got to the zombie’s, knights, and mages.  If they got that far this morning.

She felt in control, confident, and very much alive.  She knew the risks, but she was meant for this, it was in her blood.  The rest of them were in the same robes as last night, mages and clerics didn’t really wear armor, but depended on magic.

Suzy’s shield of light wouldn’t protect them from physical weapons, but it would stop dark magic, and creatures made of dark magic since dark magic was imbued into their very being.  She couldn’t depend on it for her life though, Suzy was still an apprentice, and it might be effective for the first couple of floors, but not when they hit level three.  After that it would do good against dark spells only, and only weak ones.

Suzy cast another spell, and two traps lit up green, and Jerrold started to move forward around the traps.

She was getting ready to follow, when Suzy said, “Stop!”

Jerrold turned, “What is it?”

Suzy smirked, and pointed up, “People need to look up more.”

She looked up, and saw several glowing green spikes in the ceiling, and Jerrold had almost walked right under it.

Jerrold said, “Thanks Suzy,” and adjust his course to avoid stepping under them by getting closer to the left side wall of the room.

She got a spell of air ready and held it in her hands as Jerrold carefully found the niche they had heard was there, and got ready to swing his mace, they were just a few feet behind.

Jerrold grunted, the niche was empty.

She heard stone on stone, and looked to the right, and two skeletons, one from each of the spike traps, were crawling out and standing up.  Damn dungeon was sneaky.

Jerrold rushed one with the mace, while she released her air spell at the one behind.  To her right, she saw a flash of fire, and the skeleton blew up into pieces, and then was set on fire as bones went flying.

Sienna laughed at the overkill, “I think we got him.”

The closer skeleton lifted its arm to block Jerrold’s attack, and swung with his other bone clawed hand.  The mace smashed into the arm, crushed and shattered bone, and took it right off, as the other skeleton’s hand bounced off his armor and two protective spells.  Jerrold took another swing, and bashed its head off, and the skeleton fell back into the pit.

She sighed, the fight hadn’t been hard at all, and she wasn’t expecting it to be hard until floor three.  But… she was glad she’d waited, she’d have never thought to look up.  It would have been really embarrassing for the ducal heir to die in the first room, on an initiate level threat.

Jerrold collected the loot, they’d split it up later, and said, “Stay alert and we should be fine.  Everyone ready for room two?”

Her nod echoed the others, and they moved forward behind Jerrold.

For the rest of level one, and most of level two, they didn’t have any major problems.  Suzy saw all the traps between her sharp mind and the spells, so far without fail and pointed them out.  Jerrold seemed untouchable, and protected the casters the best he could, and her, Sienna, and Suzy while in robes, were far from helpless.

Her and Sienna seemed to work well together, and they worked on their timing.  They figured out if she released her oversized air spell a moment after Sienna’s fire spell, it would literally explode and increase the fire, harming other nearby mobs, and absolutely annihilated the target they’d hit.

It wasn’t until they reached the last room on the second floor that they saw something new, and something that gave her pause.  Some of the zombies and skeletons on the second floor had swords, and rounded shields.  A few even had tattered leather armor.  But they weren’t facing a zombie.

She’d read in the report about undead knights and mages, but the reality was far more intimidating than a worded description in a book, and she straightened her back and pursed her lips with determination as they entered the room.

The undead knight wore gleaming black armor, which looked every bit as good as Gerald’s.  It also wielded a curved longsword, and a tower shield.  She could see the dark magic protection spell around its body.  Behind the knight, was a zombie in robes, but unlike the other zombies this one’s eyes glinted a malevolent red, and it too had a dark aura about it.  Dark undead mage.

Jerrold yelled a war cry, and raced forward with his axe raised high, his mace having been put away a few rooms ago.

The dark knight’s eyes seemed to glow brighter, and then when Jerrold was only ten feet away it rushed forward almost faster than she could see.  Jerrold had no time to swing the axe, as the tower shield smashed into him and sent him flying back fifteen feet.

The dark mage fired off a curse and hit Sienna, but the spell was held at bay by Suzy’s light shield.

She was frozen for a moment, not sure what the bigger threat was, but snapped out of it and launched an air bolt at the knight.  The same kind that blew apart skeletons merely pushed him back a foot, as her spell broke on its shield.

Sienna said, “Shit,” as fire raced out and smashed into the dark mage, and exploded harmlessly against its robes.”

Suzy ran over to Jerrold, and started a healing spell, he looked dazed and confused.

The knight started over to Suzy’s back, but at a normal walking speed, maybe he couldn’t do that rush speed thing all the time.  The dark mage started to cast another spell.

Sienna hissed, “The knight, and together this time.”

She nodded and got her spell ready, and threw another air bold as soon as she saw the flash of Sienna’s fire.

There was a huge explosion, which picked up the knight and threw him back several feet to land on his back.  Yet, it appeared to be in one piece still.

She gasped as darkness surrounded her, and this time Suzy’s spell broke, and she felt a lethargy enter her body.  She wanted nothing more than to lay down, but fought off the feeling.  Weakness would have been very effective against Jerrold, but against a mage who didn’t really use their muscles, it was merely an annoyance.  A better choice against a mage would have been feeble mindedness, but fortunately for them, the undead mage was still basically a moron.

Suzy must have finished, because Jerrold got up and approached the knight more cautiously, who was still in the middle of getting up, and swung his axe hard splitting the undead knight’s helmet and going into its brain.

Which, didn’t seem to kill it.

Sienna said, “Again, but the mage.”

As she built another air bolt, she saw a flash of white cross the room from Suzy, which struck the mage and seemed to eat its dark shield.  She smiled wide in anticipation as she released her bolt after Sienna’s fire.  This time, there was nothing left of the undead mage as it exploded into fire, hit the wall, and disintegrated.

The dark knight was back on its feet, and Jerrold was trading blows with it, using the spike of the axe to parry and block the knight’s sword.  Her bolt spell was out of the question, it was too big, and they were fighting too closely together.

She cast the blades of air spell, and aimed it at the dark knight’s head and neck.  The helmet was in tatters, so it actually worked, and the head went flying off.

She laughed a little hysterically when the undead knight fought on.

Jerrold found an opening though, and took off the knight’s sword arm with a quick stroke, and then dove to the side when the knight tried a last ditch shield bash, and went flying past and fell on its face.

She and the others repeated their attack on the mage, white magic to dispel, fire magic to burn, and air magic to explode that fire.  The armor withstood the attack, but there were enough gaps that the body inside burned.

Jerrold got up and grunted, “That was…”

Sienna interrupted, “Awesome!”

She started to giggle, it kind of was.  A hell of a rush.  She was also exhausted.

Suzy got the curse off her with a dispel, and then they searched for loot.  The armor and sword of the knight were good, so they took that but would have to get it identified at the guild, for a price of course, and then decide what to do with it. Most likely sell it.  There were also some silver pieces, along with exactly four tokens, one for each of them.

Jerrold grunted, “What are these?”

Suzy said, “There’s a picture of stairs on them, with the number four.”

She tilted her head, “Do you suppose this will open the normally one way door on the top of the shortcut exit stairs, and allow us safe passage down to the level three to four stairwell?  So we don’t have to fight our way past the easy stuff again?”

Sienna laughed, “Are you volunteering to check it?”

She snickered, “That… nice one.”

Sienna bowed but her eyes were full of mischief, “Please forgive me princess.”

She sighed, and then stuck her tongue out.  She hadn’t had this much fun in… ever really.

“Are we pushing forward?”

Jerrold shook his head, “No, I’m exhausted, and everyone but you is low on magic.”

She blushed, she hated to be reminded of her unusually large aura.  Not that she hated it, it would continue to grow, and if she ever reached master level it would make her very powerful.

“Good point, we should celebrate, and then send you to test the token.”

He laughed as they went into the next room, which was really just a small alcove with stairs going down on one side, and on the other the exit stairs from level three.  From what she knew, the exit stairs were one way only, and the traps beyond deadly for anyone trying to sneak down them.  She knew they’d verify it with the guild before trying to use the tokens, they hadn’t been in any of the reports.

I was laughing on the inside, at the party’s comments.  I’d put a token symbol on the exit door up top, maybe that would convince them it was safe?  Although the exit stairs could be accessed from every floor going out, I only planned tokens for sections.  So far, I only had two, undead and then demons, but the next token would be a level six shortcut to the stairs down to seven, when I had more floors that is.

I also added a very subtle dark spell on it, if someone tries to sell or share the tokens with someone that didn’t earn it, they’ll very much regret doing so.  Not to mention my memory was perfect, the tokens were mostly for the adventurer’s benefit.  I already knew who’d defeated the third-floor boss, every single one of them.

When that group had first entered, I was almost ecstatic there was an air mage, finally.  But listening to their banter I found out she’s the damned princess, and will be a duchess of the ducal holding my dungeon is in.  I wouldn’t play favorites, but I wondered what the fallout would be if she died down here.  Bah, she probably doesn’t have a spell book with her anyway.

I’d been thinking about my conversation with Boduna, and decided I really didn’t know anything new, but it was good to have most of my suspicions verified.

Lila and Ebony seemed to be more cheerful as well, or at least, as cheerful as they’d ever been before the fallout of my mistakes.  They were also far more relaxed in their interactions with me, and I wondered if that’s because I shared the truth about me.  The demons and lower planar creatures that used dark magic were evil, but apparently, the higher planar beings that used dark magic were less easy to pin down that way.

Which meant they probably weren’t worried I’d punish them for teasing.

I was sure I could be evil, but it would be of my own choice.  I wasn’t corrupted or designed to be evil like a demon was, but rather to have free will.  Just like light beings could be good, or not.  The hate within me for those that imprisoned and banished me, whoever they were, was come by honestly.  I didn’t actively dislike anyone else, or at least I wouldn’t, until they proved themselves my enemy.

I wondered if I’d been a little too self-analytical the last few days, but I did need to discover what I was, and where I came from.  That seemed just as important as anything else.

To my disappointment, Lila wasn’t displaying any of the signs from last time.  It was a little amusing to consider that I might have been more sexually frustrated than the succubus sharing my prison.  It was more than that of course, it was all the sensations of having a true body, and the remarkable feeling of that intimate connection we shared.

I had to be patient.

I was also exceedingly careful when thinking about that aspect of things, to use my partitioned mind for it.  So far, I hadn’t made any more errors or slipups that way.

Lila said, “Nurien?” in a voice so tentative it got my attention right away.

“Lila?”

She said, “I’ve been thinking, once we get out of here I might be… destroyed again, and banished.”

I replied, “Yes, but your soul is bound to me, I shouldn’t have a problem summoning you from hell.”

She sighed, “Maybe, but a demon lord could strip it given enough time.”

She still sounded tentative, way too much so considering what she was.

I asked, “What are you suggesting.”

She said, “Well.  Even if the bond was destroyed somehow, if you had my true name…” she trailed off.

I was shocked, and touched.  Did she trust me that much?  Of course, I could still destroy her right now, in the crystal, and I hadn’t.  Still, if she planned to escape this would remove all hope of that, so obviously, she wasn’t.  Planning to escape I mean.

With her true name, I could summon her easily, bond or not.  I could also do far worse.  I think I loved her a little bit for that trust, it’s hard to say, because I didn’t really understand that emotion.  Not yet, not back then anyway.

“Tell me, if you wish.”

She did…

Chapter Fifteen

“Enter.”

Carlton wondered what the hell happened now as Cory walked in with a reluctance on his face.  He still hadn’t turned anything up about what was going on with the dungeon, but at least he was sure it was something real and not just political paranoia.

“What is it Cory?”

Cory shut the door and cast a privacy spell.

“Your grace, Verin’s team just got done trying to convince the duke to bring in a dungeon killer team.  They went on about how it wasn’t really a dungeon, and was a dark evil deceiving them for fell reasons.  The accusations went on for quite a while.  Do you think it could be true?”

He shook his head, “There is something off, but a dark evil?  I don’t know, if that was true why didn’t Verin work through me.  My guess is the princess ruined their plans to set up the dungeon somehow, and this is there desperate backup plan.  Did they give proof of any kind?”

Cory replied, “Not as such, they said the gods granted a vision.”

He snorted, “Right, a vision.  What did the duke say?”

Cory said, “He said no, and dismissed them.  But… he looked very pale, almost sick, when he did it.  The other nobles were very dismissive, and called them paranoid.  They very much have faith in the guild’s findings, and maybe even in the fact that you weren’t there to support their claim.”

He shook his head, “Something is going on.  What else, I can see it on your face.”

Cory fidgeted, “One of them left with a dispatch.  They didn’t go north to the crown city, they left out of the south gate, and went south toward Jennesar.”

He nodded, “That clears up quite a bit, thank you.  So that was the function of their envoy, and its Jennesar that wants the dungeon destroyed.  I wonder what they offered Verin for that little favor to make the weasel help them?  And why do they want the dungeon destroyed.  The duke knows, or at least knows some of it, but we can’t exactly question him, can we.”

Cory shook his head, “No sir.”

He considered for a moment.

“The duke said no when he had an excuse to go after the dungeon, even if a feeble one, which means whatever the duke does know leads him to believe whatever it is isn’t truly evil.”

Cory replied, “Or, he doesn’t believe it can be destroyed, and believes the safest course is to just let it be.  After all, his family had quarantined that keep for centuries.  Seems like a waste of a good holding if it could be easily taken care of.”

Carlton was startled by that observation, but it was a possibility he had to add to his considerations.  Unfortunately, his hands were tied on the matter.  Verin was his superior in the church and wasn’t telling him anything, and the duke was the true ruler here.  Although, it was tempting to say fuck it, and just cast a truth spell on him.  But… he didn’t get where he was being reckless.

“Our options are limited, but I want you to set up a field training exercise to the south, put Merin in charge of it and have him keep his eyes to the south.  I want to know when the messenger comes back, and if anyone returns with him.”

He really didn’t know what to do, but since it was a conspiracy to destroy the dungeon, he couldn’t help but think it wasn’t a true threat.  If it was truly a threat, there would be no need for secrets.  At least, not on his level, the high cleric of the city should have been informed at the least.

“You may go, and keep up the good work.”

Cory smiled and left to take care of his tasks…

Catalina felt like she was on fire, figuratively.  They’d left the dungeon, went to the inn, and ordered ale and dinner.  As the adrenaline wore down, it seemed like her libido rose in equal measure.  She was thrilled to be alive, and excited that she was finally free to follow her desires.

Her nipples were sore and swollen, and she was moist and hot below.  She also had no one to help her take the edge off, and while she enjoyed the other adventurers’ company she was aware of their difference of station.

Adventurers were rarely known for their circumspection.

Worse, when she went to bed to take care of it, maybe with that air spell again, Sienna was right behind her.  She’d forgotten she was sharing the room, and thought she might explode.

Sienna said, “I might have to get my own room tonight.”

She spun around, “Why?” and then berated herself for not simply pushing her out the door.  She liked Sienna, and her company, but she could do with being alone herself.

Sienna smirked, and broke eye contact to look around the small room nervously.

“I have a confession to make.”

She sat on the large bed they’d shared last night, there was plenty of room for two without touching.  She watched Sienna curiously as she came over and sat down.

“Confession?”

Sienna nodded, and looked her in the eyes.  Sienna’s brown eyes were really warm, but they were absent the mischief she could usually see in them.  She also loved the fire mage’s red hair, it was so… luxurious looking, and beautiful.  She liked her light brown hair, but it was straight and boring, where Sienna’s was wavy.

Sienna said, “Your magic aura is large, but that’s not why I stared the first time we met.”

She tilted her head, “Then why?”

Sienna said softly, “Because he never told me how stunningly beautiful you are.  How… how do you feel about women?  Because I prefer them to men.”

It took her horny slightly drink addled mind a moment to catch up.  Sienna was attracted to her, Sienna wanted her, wanted to love her, right now in the bed.  She’d never really considered being with a woman before, she’d grown up thinking about falling in love with a man and ruling the duchy together.

Of course, she’d changed a lot since then, and right then she’d been wishing for a hot and discrete man.  She’d never thought about being with a woman before, yet she was suddenly curious, and Sienna’s lips looked soft.  The fire mage was beautiful, and had a curvy attractive body.  Sienna was a huge flirt, but also showed generosity of heart.

She was… intrigued.  She also knew the members of her own party would be discrete for each other, and she was so damned horny that she actually considered it.  She might not have if she hadn’t been so revved up, and it would have been her loss.  To her surprise, the idea of kissing the woman in front of her didn’t turn her off at all.  In fact, it spread the warmth of her core even further.

She must have been thinking too long, because Sienna said, “I’m sorry, I’ll go find my own room.”

She reached out and put her hand on Sienna’s leg to stop her, and got a questioning look in reply.

“I’ve never been with a woman before.  But… I would very much like you to kiss me now.”

Truthfully, she’d never been with anyone before, male or female, outside of a few stolen and curious kisses, but she’d still told the truth.

Sienna smiled shyly, but her words were teasing, “Where did you want it?”

She flirted back, “Let’s start on the lips, and then take it from there.”

Sienna giggled, but then her face grew serious, and Catalina could see the desire in Sienna’s eyes as their heads came together, and eyes closed, as their lips touched for the first time.

She sighed in pleasure, Sienna’s soft lips felt so good on hers, and she lost herself a little bit and melted against her.

She was hot, desperately wanting things she barely comprehended yet, but something about that kiss slowed her down, and she gently explored Sienna’s body with her hands, as Sienna explored hers.  Their kiss deepened and she moaned as Sienna’s tongue started to explore her mouth, and her play with her own tongue.

It was just a kiss, and light petting, but she felt so close to the edge already, and it was a far more powerful feeling than it’d ever been on her own.  It was thrilling, when she let her hands caress the sides of Sienna’s firm breasts through the robes, and when Sienna returned the favor she felt her core convulse, and gasped out at the little explosion of pleasure.

It wasn’t a large orgasm, but it was still more intense than what she’d managed on her own.

Sienna smiled and broke their kiss.

“Goddess, your incredible, did you just cum for me?”

She nodded, “I’ve never…”

Sienna’s eyes widened for a moment, but then her smile widened, “Oh good, I can train you.”

She giggled.

Sienna said, “Off with those robes, and we’ll decide where I’m going to kiss you next.”

She shivered at the thought, a good shiver that sent pleasure straight to her core.  She couldn’t wait to see Sienna’s body either, and wondered where she might find her own lips soon.

She smiled as she pulled her robes off, and absently set a spell just in case either of them got too loud.  It was going to be a hell of a night…

Chapter Sixteen

It was late, but there were still plenty of people fighting.  Adventurers had started to show up, so it wasn’t just the local people fighting anymore.  I was paying attention to everything of course, but I had my focus on a group that had both an air and an earth mage.  I’d never seen a human with two affinities before, and she was getting low on mana.

I could also feel the magic objects on her, and hoped that one of them was a spell book.  If she would just… die.  It would make my day complete.  Then all I’d be lacking on is magic in the water sphere, not that I couldn’t stand to learn new things about all the spheres, including dark.  I was still convinced the dark sphere had to have more than inimical spells in it.  After all, I’d made some myself.

Dark protections, and the new mind trap spell which I should rename.

April said, “We should go back Nils, and take the exit back up on level four.  I’m low on magic.”

The paladin looked back with a frown, “Just use it sparingly, hold back until the boss fight, the rest of us can pick up the slack.  It’s not much farther, maybe a few fights.”

There were four people in that party, the paladin had a glowing white sword, and armor with an enchantment on it.  April didn’t look happy with his suggestion, but I was thrilled by it.  The other two were a cleric, and another warrior that wasn’t a paladin.  Just a guy with armor, shield, and a sword.

I could see the indecision on April’s face.  The caution that had served her well, and had gotten her to this point warred with going against the orders of her party leader, and his unwise and frankly in my opinion, unneeded greed.  My dungeon and rewards would still be here tomorrow after all.  Of course, I wanted her to make the stupid decision.  Her spell support had been critical on level four, and holding back would be a disaster for them.  At least, I could hope it would be.

I wasn’t exactly a bloodthirsty being, I didn’t want her death, so much as I really wanted her spell book.  It was the knowledge I craved.

April sighed, “Fine, but if I run out saving your ass, again, I’m leaving.”

Nils rolled his eyes arrogantly, “We’ll be fine, promise.  We got this.  Everyone ready to kick this level’s ass?”

I almost laughed at that, they were already most of the way through, and had struggled to win the last fight.  They could win, but it wouldn’t be an ass kicking.

They walked forward and around a wall, not seeing anything Nils kept going.  The cleric said, “Wait!” but Nils took another step setting off the trap.

The wall collapsed behind him, cutting off any retreat, and two demon warriors blocked the way forward.  Two demon archers were fifty feet beyond them standing on another wall, and standing on the wall between them was a demon mage.

I laughed.

Ebony asked, “Enjoying yourself.”

I replied, “Yes sexy, immensely.”

Ebony’s giggle and posing cheered me immensely, she really was over me hiding my secrets.  Lila’s throaty laughter in my mind was sexy, but no longer laced with a threatening edge.

Nils charged forward, and grunted when he got shot by an arrow for his trouble, and kept going.

The two demons prepared for his charge, and he heard and saw that the other warrior in the group cursed, and then belatedly joined the charge.

The cleric was casting, and raising a large amount of mana.

The second archer took a bead on the cleric and fired, but with a quick word and wave of April’s hand, a piece of stone from the collapsed wall rose off the ground and blocked the arrow.

Nils cried out and used a paladin ability, and lunged sword first.  The demon tried to dodge and parry at the same time, but that didn’t stop Nil’s glowing white sword from impaling his chest.

The second Demon took a free swing, and its sword buried itself in Nils side, causing Nils to scream in pain.  The other warrior got there a second late to prevent it, but took a swing at the demon.

The demon couldn’t get his sword out of Nil’s side, it was stuck in the armor, so he let go and dodged the warrior’s strike, jumping backwards as Nil’s collapsed on top of the dead demon he’d impaled right through the heart.  Nil was still alive, but he was bleeding out quickly.

April cursed, and then cast the same one word spell again, a stone the size of a cantaloupe shot from the ground and nailed the archer on the right, crushing its chest, and knocking it backwards off the wall.

The demon mage, and the cleric, finished casting at almost exactly the same time.

A bolt of darkness shot out and hit the second warrior, which made him wilt, and the demon soldier moved back into melee range.

At the same time, a bolt of light left the cleric’s hand, a banishment spell if I ever saw one, and it burned through the demon mage’s shields like they weren’t there, and sent him back to hell.  Powerful spell, no wonder it took so long to cast.

April looked to be on her last legs magic wise, and cast a simple speed spell on the standing weakened warrior, much like he’d seen the princess cast.  The warrior evaded the demon’s clawed attack, and moved his sword as fast as a whip, and his sword cut through the armor and into the demon.

The demon lunged forward and tackled the warrior, as he bled freely, and tore his throat out with his claws.  He stood up, took two steps forward, and then passed out from blood loss.  I myself got a huge energy hit from the dead warrior’s life force, and started to transmute his life force to magic where I was low, and then gave the rest to the succubus to hold.

April didn’t have enough magic to rub two stones together, and the cleric was damned low as well.  The Paladin was out and dying, and the other warrior already dead.  That said, the demons were out of it as well, only one of the archers still undamaged.

The archer took careful aim at the cleric and fired.

The cleric dove to the side, and the arrow went through her arm, instead of her torso.

April ducked down and joined the cleric, and grabbed a slab of stone to hide behind.

April said, “you alright?”

“I’ll live, just keep him from shooting me, I think I have enough magic left to take him.  If we live through this let’s find another leader.  Assuming we can even save that jackass Nils before he dies.”

April nodded, “This was stupid, and you’ve got a deal.”

The cleric started casting again, while April held the heavy ass stone up for their cover, at least three arrows bounced off it before the spell was complete, and a golden shaft of light hit the demon, and put a hole through his torso.

Damnit, the mage survived.  I would have sighed in annoyance, if I had a body.

Both of them ran up and started to attend to Nils.  April pulled the sword out, and the cleric hit him with a heal spell which was only partially effective.

“I’m out of magic too, got anything in your backpack?”

April nodded and pulled her pack out, and reached in for a healing potion, and after a moment of hesitation grabbed two.

April said, “One for you, let’s get that arrow out.”

The cleric smiled, “Thanks, I owe you one.  Maybe you should be our next leader, and we can order around the dumb warriors?”

April laughed, and they moved forward to push Nils on his back, and feed him the potion.

I laughed gleefully in the depths of my mind.

She’d moved far enough from her pack where I could access it, and I didn’t waste any time.  I learned both healing potions, and an air enchantment off of a mirror that had to do with communication.  It was one of a pair and I wondered who had the other one.

I also devoured the spells in her spell book.  Copied them really, she would never know.

My mind wandered as I broke down all the air and earth spells she knew to their component parts, and only barely kept track of the party as they backtracked and left the dungeon.  Something told me Nils would have problems finding another party to lead when this story got out.

The fight would have been different if April had more magic.  Hell, the fight would have been different if Nils had waited for and charged with the other warrior, instead of being a reckless overconfident idiot.

Air magic organization was different, but not hard to understand as I studied it.  The first thing I did was build enchantments into the walls, to circulate air, instead of constantly using my own supply of raw air magic to do so.  It used less than a quarter of the magic that way, and was far more efficient besides.  Secondly, I created a few air and earth spells, or just plain stole the ones she knew, and taught, or rather imbued the knowledge, on my undead mages with those affinities.

I made a few more random rewards with much better enchantments for level six.  Swords that not only wouldn’t dull, but were so sharp they’d cut through un-enchanted steel like butter.  With knowing enough earth magic now, I could make more sophisticated traps to move things in a proscribed manner, as opposed to simply knocking walls over and turning them to rubble.

It was a good day, and I didn’t even have to kill the mage to get the knowledge.

It was about to get a lot better, and I didn’t know it.

Lila commented sourly, “At least one of us is enjoying themselves.”

“Would you like to enjoy yourself?  I made a new spell, almost from scratch.”

I felt that she was skeptical, but she asked, “New spell?”

“Yes, it doesn’t target the greatest anything, it just focuses on, well hundreds of things honestly, and helps come up with a something desirable, and a fantasy, but not one that is overwhelming.”

I hoped.

She asked pointedly, “You thought the last spell would work well, what if you fuck up again?”

“Well, I was kind of hoping…” I trailed off.

She sounded incredulous, and somehow sultry at the same time, “You want me?  You want to join me and fuck my brains out, don’t you Nurien?” her voice teasingly accusing, but also quite delighted at the end.

“Yes, yes I do.  So, what do you think? If it goes wrong I can break you out of it right away, instead of waiting outside until I figure out there’s a problem.”

She pouted, “Is that all you wanted?  To protect me?”

I laughed, “No, not at all.  I… care about you, and want to feel what it is to have a body, and share intimacy and pleasure with you once again Lila.  I long to feel you against me again.  Is that what you wanted to hear?”

She chuckled sexily, “I’d like that very much Nurien.”

A part of me wondered if that was because she liked me, or because in some way, it would give her power over me.  Even if she’d never be strong enough to take advantage of it.  Well, she was a demoness, so the best I could probably hope for, is both things being true.  Just because she swore her loyalty and service, doesn’t mean she would resist a mostly harmless balance of power change in her favor.

This time, I left my partitioned mind alone, so that I could pay attention in both places.  Truthfully, I doubted I would ever reconnect it.  I wasn’t exactly keeping heavy secrets there, just keeping a few things private, and it was a place I could work on surprises.  Then I brought up the complicated spell form, and shaped the dark magic to it.  I cast it through our bond, and then followed it with my mind…

Chapter Seventeen

She frowned at me, “Why that form?”

I looked down, and it was the same body as last time, including the rather large…

“Your head, your fantasy.  I didn’t choose this body Lila.”

As for Lila herself, she was in human form right now.  Raven black hair, bright green eyes, and a surprisingly soft and beautiful face.  Heart shaped.  Her body though, was clearly built for sin.  She looked more waspish, instead of having an hourglass figure, and her breasts were huge, yet stood up firmly with bright pink nipples.  Just looking at her made my body react and harden.

We were both naked already, and in a bedroom of some kind with a large bed, a dresser, a mage light for a lamp, and the walls and floors were smoothly polished stone, although not marble.

Even besides Lila, just the body I was in was ridiculously distracting, there were so many sensations, and my desire at her naked form was almost overwhelming.  It took a real act of self-control and will not to step forward and grab her.  And then do… something.

She smiled, “Well, it is rather well built.  Are you sure about this?  More than one master has been corrupted by laying with a succubus.”

She was right about that.  Demons were much like any other race including humans, but they were chained with twisted dark magic that made them hate, desire pain and death, and also had a desire to consume the power of others.  To corrupt and destroy.  It was apparent to me though, that they were like everyone else underneath, and were truly just slaves to their own corruption.

If that weren’t true, how else would her greatest fantasy and desire be, to be an angel serving a god?

“That shouldn’t be an issue, all we can share is pleasure, and our feelings.  This is a dream, a made up world, and unlike in reality your hellish gifts can’t reach here.”

She scoffed, but stepped closer, “I wouldn’t call them gifts, demons are cursed.  So, you’re saying that lying with me won’t have an effect?”  She arched her eyebrows in challenge.

I smiled, “Oh it will, but a completely natural one.”

She sensually closed the distance with a slow strut, all I could do was feast my eyes.

I leaned down, and wrapped my arms around her, as hers went around me.  The sensations of her naked body as it conformed to mine, pressed against mine, were far better than I’d remembered.  I leaned down as she looked up, and our lips met for the first time.

It was a little slow at first, exploring, but became demanding very quickly.  She was a sex demoness and she was very much in need of quenching that part of herself.  Her scent of arousal was intoxicating as my hands caressed her back and down to her ass, where I picked her up.

Her legs went around my middle, and her arms around my neck as she deepened the kiss.  Our tongues dueled as I carried her to the bed.  Her soft needy moans didn’t sound at all artful, as her nails played with the back of my neck, and her satiny moist heat ground against my length.  I drowned in the sensations of having a body, and reveled in the sensation of her in my arms.

I laid her back on the bed, and grabbed her legs and pulled her toward the edge, and then slowly joined our bodies together as one.  It was even more intense than last time.  I don’t know if the memory of last time was paling, or if her core was just that much more pleasurable than her mouth.

She twisted and pulled her own nipples as she looked up at me, and I echoed her moan as her soft moist heat tightened and pulsed around me.

Maybe she was right, I could get lost in this, in her.

She ground up as I pushed in, and then our bodies developed a rhythm as old as time, the velvety liquid friction and the way she arched her back and thrust to meet my every descent into her body’s tight, wet, and warm embrace was overwhelming as the pleasure built up inside my body, and started to overshadow my ability to think.

All I could do was feel, as we both gave and took pleasure from one another.  It was pure ecstasy, and only my second time in a body.  She was a succubus starved of sex.  Needless to say perhaps, we both came to our peaks and reached our pleasure quickly.  She tightened around me, and convulsed as she cried out, and my body grew weak, as a tidal wave of pleasure raced from my center and drowned my body and mind, and I filled her with my essence.

It was one of the best experiences of my life, and I wasn’t even in the bed yet…

Several hours later, and rounds, we lay in the bed with her against me.  The sensations were still overwhelming, and the feeling of her body against me pure bliss, but I was also sated.

She caressed my face with a thoughtful look on her face.

“This won’t work you know.”

I tilted my head, “What won’t work?”

She snorted, “This.  I can feel how you feel about me, you care, and it’s growing.  I’m not immune to it myself, I’m drawn to power after all, and you’re…” she trailed off as if not knowing how to explain it.

She finally sighed, “We can have these little trysts for a while, but it will end once I have my body back, and you have your own.”

I asked, “Why?”

She shook her head, “Because I’m a succubus, and I will need to feed.  I could never be faithful to you, which would quickly sour what seems to be growing between us.  We also wouldn’t be able to sleep together anymore, bound or not I couldn’t resist pulling for your soul.  I really don’t want to do that, even if you could control it.  It wouldn’t be the same anymore, it would be hunger unsatisfied for me, and this intimacy we both feel would be destroyed.”

“I see.  What if I could change that?  Would you allow it?”

She snorted, “Might as well change the tides.  As for allowing it, I trust you and gave you my true name, you can do whatever you wish.”

I decided this would take more thought, because I sure as hell didn’t want to give this up when I got a real body.

She asked, “Got one more in you before I break out of the spell?”

I kissed her softly, and wondered if she really could be growing to have feelings for me, like I was for her.  It did seem doomed in a way, but I’d figure it out somehow.

“Let’s find out,” I suggested with a smile.

She laughed throatily…

“Hey sexy,” I called over to Ebony.

She flew over, and landed on my crypt, swung her legs off the side and then crossed them.  She looked cute and irresistibly sexy in a new black dress that was almost conservative, but didn’t quite make it.  She was a major flirt, and seemed to like me, but I wasn’t sure what her reaction would be if I suggested anything to do with a certain spell.

Size wouldn’t be an issue, not inside her head.

I also wasn’t sure how Lila would feel about that.  Like last time, I felt a little empty without a body again, fake or not, and was already looking forward to next time.  Not just the sex either, though I’ll admit that was a large part of it.  But just to truly see, touch, smell, hear, and taste with a real body, to look at Lila, and hold her.  The sensations, all of them.  Even a simple breath was overwhelming for me.

Ebony asked, “What is it master?”

“There are some creatures burrowing in from the east.  Any ideas what they are?  They’re moving fast, and should be breaking into this room in about fifteen minutes.  I could crush them but…”

Ebony cast a spell and sent it that way, it disappeared into the stone wall like a pebble dropped in a pond.

Ebony said, “Gnomes.  They’re a dark race, but mostly peaceful if others leave them alone.  They love to build complex and very large inventions.  Including traps and puzzles.  Maybe they felt you and decided to join forces?”

She hadn’t sounded all that sure, but right around that time most of them stopped, and only two of the gnomes continued forward, with some sort of device that was drilling through the rock and dirt.  I summoned two demon warriors, and a mage, just in case.  I supposed I’d find out what they wanted when they got here.  Still, I thought leaving most of their population behind was a good sign.

“Thanks sexy, they’ll be here soon, only two are coming now.  I guess we’ll talk to them.”

Ebony arched her back and stretched, and almost had a wardrobe malfunction.  Almost.

“Oh, I really like the new dress, your stunning.  I noticed it earlier but with the gnomes on our doorstep…” I trailed off.  Leave it to my dungeon imp to fish for compliments, and look damned sexy doing it.

Ebony smiled coquettishly, “You think so?”

If I had eyes, I’d have rolled them.

“Think what?” I teased.

She blew out a breath, and glared at me.  Or, you know, down at the stone lid of the crypt where my crystal was.

“Stunning you mean?  Absolutely.”

She preened, “Thanks.”

My focus turned at the loud grinding and sharp retort of the wall being drilled through.  It looked like some kind of circular thing with thousands of sharp sword blades, some small, some large, some long, some short.  I’d never seen anything like it, and it was packed with magic, including elementals stones of earth, air, water, and fire.  Strangely, I got the idea that it had a very crude awareness.  It trundled forward a little further, but kept its distance from the demon guards I’d summoned, and a couple of gnomes came out.

The gnomes bowed to the crypt, and the little demoness on top.  They were about three feet tall, and had ugly cragged faces.  One was in a simple robe, the other one who must have been the leader, wore multicolored robes, and a strange little hat that gave off magic.

“Greetings great dungeon, we would like to parley a deal.”

“What brings you here?” I asked.

“I am gnome chieftain.  We had to flee from our old home from dark elves,” he paused to spit at the ground, “We seek an alliance.”

I replied, “I see, what do you seek, and what do you offer in return?”

“A level of your dungeon for our town, including water, air, and a place to grow food.  In return for your guardianship and protection, we will teach you how to make real traps, contraptions, puzzles, and devices.  You need only watch us build them right?”

Well, that wasn’t what I was expecting, but I suppose a three foot tall wrinkled person wouldn’t be much of a fight.  But if they could teach me all that, it might even be worth it.  Deadly traps and puzzles appealed to me, and I was pretty sure that device over there was a golem of some kind.  I’d probably do it just to learn how to make one of those myself.

“If I agree, you will stay out of the dungeon proper, and never drill into it again.  I will summon demons to assist in your protection, and provide what you asked for, but you must also help protect yourselves, and build golems.”

The chieftain said, “Hard, need supplies don’t have.  Elemental stones rare, dark elves steal.”

Well shit.

“I can make you some of those.  But you would supply the magic to fill them.”

I’d been building my layers a long time, and it was a painstaking process because I was stuck inside of it, and there was a lot of magic stored.  If I made a mistake while adding a layer of crystallization I could blow up myself, and the whole dungeon.  I had made a lot of progress though, I was almost a half a centimeter thicker than when I started.

However, building a complete stone crystal lattice, when there was no magic in it yet would be child’s play, and go very quickly.

The chieftain didn’t look convinced, so I spun one up right there, a marble sized elemental stone, that could hold all six elements.  Something I knew was supposed to be impossible according to that master Ember woman.  Then I lightly tossed it to him with a tiny earth spell.

He caught it and his eyes widened.

“You have deal, if you agree.  Will take time though, golems take much time build.  Traps and other things complex but we can do faster to teach.  Need two stones each golem, make four golems protect village?”

I laughed, he was being greedy but I didn’t mind, I really wanted to know how to make them, that would be a kick ass level when I expanded.  I had a feeling though it would be months, if not years before they finished even one.

“Alright, you have a deal.  I’ll make seven more elemental stones when you need them.”

He agreed, and a bond formed.

“Please wait, this shouldn’t take all that long.”

Maybe an hour or two.

The succubus was holding about two life forces right now, and I was at about forty percent on my magic saturation.  I decided to use what she had and built a level seven, one that wasn’t connected to the dungeon at all, yet was part of my domain.  I built a lot of small rooms for dens, and many medium sized rooms for workshops, and a very large room for fields.

I figured that was good enough for digging out the level, the gnomes worked well with stone so could add the finishing touches or change things up for themselves.  I used several air enchantments to keep the air fresh, and used earth magic to make the field room fertile soil instead of sand and rock.  I also dug a well of sorts and used a water enchantment to generate water and keep it full.

I pondered for a moment, that seemed like it would work.

“Okay, you can go now, twenty feet straight down.  If you need to talk to me, just call for me out loud.”

The chieftain bowed, and they left by the hole they came in at.  I waited until they tunneled down to their new home, and brought the rest of their tribe, and then I resealed the wall, and collapsed all the tunnels they’d made as far out as I could reach.  Hopefully that would be enough to dissuade any dark elves from following.  I used a very small part of myself to focus on all they did, to watch and learn, and then focused back on the dungeon.

On a whim, I casted an air spell and pinched Ebony’s ass.

Ebony shrieked and jumped up, while I chuckled.

Ebony said, “What was that for?”

I replied, “An ass that perfect is just begging for attention.”

She blushed… and Lila snorted.

Lila said, “Just get it over with.”

“Get what over with?”

Lila sighed, “I’m in your mind remember.  Demons are many things, but jealous isn’t one of them.  If you want to use that spell on her, go for it.  She really does have a nice ass, doesn’t she?”

I ignored that last comment and asked, “Do you think she really wants me too?”

Lila snickered, “Oh yes, trust me.  She loves you, at least as much as my kind are capable of it.  I think she’s more capable than most, she’s really disgustingly sweet.  Still, it would be a good idea to ask first.”

“I’ll think about it.”

Lila was silent for a few moments, and then asked with an edge of lust in her voice, “Can I watch?”

Chapter Eighteen

She’d said yes.  The wings were a problem at first, until she’d solved the problem and pushed me onto the bed and straddled my lap.  Her leather wings were much softer than I’d thought they’d be, as they wrapped around me, as her legs straddled my thighs, and her arms were around my neck with her hands entwined with my hair.  She was bouncing up and down, with her very soft yet firm breasts bouncing in my face.  She was… exuberant, sinfully sexy and sweet, and her heat around my sensitive flesh was heavenly bliss.

My arms were wrapped around her thin waist, and my hands held her perfectly firm and rounded ass for stability as she rode me hard and fast from above.  I used my mouth on her breasts, and she gasped out and went even faster.  The soft warm liquid velvet friction was too much, and I struggled to hold on long enough for her to reach her height.

She said softly, “Nurien, kiss me,” as she slowed down, and started to ride me more sensuously.

I looked up startled once again at her ethereally beautiful face, and the warmth, and dare I say it, love and worship in her red tinged soft brown eyes.  I kissed her softly as she ground us together in short little circles and thrusts, her sex pulsating and massaging my length in a way no human woman’s ever could.

She smiled as she broke the kiss, and there was a transcendent joy in her eyes.

As for me, I was awed by both her aggressiveness and her softness, both of heart and body as we slowly rose toward ecstasy together.

She smirked, “I’m really glad you aren’t a proper dungeon.  They couldn’t, or wouldn’t, do this with me.”

I laughed, and she giggled which did interesting things down below and made me moan.

She started to pick up speed again slowly, and this time I couldn’t tear my eyes away from hers, and the intimate connection we’d formed.  No matter how big, or wonderful her firm bouncing tits in my face was, I just couldn’t look away from those brown eyes.  I was very glad my will was vast enough to pay attention to the dungeon, and the gnomes, while most of my attention was right here with her.

She whispered, “Nurien,” and gasped in delight as her rhythm faltered, and then I held her tightly as she came undone above me.  It was with relief that I let my own control go, and I exploded up inside of her, pulsing into her convulsing warmth, and I flooded her with my essence.

I kissed her softly, and then said, “You seem different from most demons.  I was wondering…”

She grinned, “Why that was?”

I just nodded.

She kissed me again and groaned, and then buried her face in my neck.

“Dungeon imps are a different breed.  We want power and knowledge just as much as other demons, that way we’re more likely to help our partners.  But since it’s a partnership, most of the cruelty and hate that lives in other demons were… bred out of us.  It’s why I’m not tempted to go out in the dungeon and take part, and more than willing to just be a servant, and help you.  When your power grows, mine does too, which satisfies my needs.  A normal demon would be constantly plotting to usurp your power.”

I supposed that made sense.

She whispered a little desperately as she asked, “Will we do this again?”

I kissed her neck, her scent was delicious, “As much as you want I think, within reason.”

She sat back and stared at me with smoldering eyes, “What if I want to be unreasonable?”

I laughed, “I’m rather attached to you sexy, I don’t think it will be an issue.”

I also had a sudden thought, if I could split my mind, couldn’t I have them both separately at the same time?

“Pervert,” Lila whispered in my mind.

Of course, she was there watching just as she’d asked, she was always in my head after all.  I focused back on Ebony, and figured doggie style would work just as well with the wings.  Really, only missionary seemed to be out, or anything that put her on her back.  It was definitely time to find out…

Over the next week, I learned a few simple Gnomish traps, and added them to the dungeon.  I say simple gnomish, but that meant about the same as human very complicated.  Gnomes took deviousness in construction to a whole new level.  It would be a long time still before the whole room puzzles and traps they were showing me were finished, and of course, much longer on the golems.

From what I could tell, when they were done there would be over a thousand tiny enchantments to control one, all working in harmony and powered from the elemental stones.  I was looking forward to that, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

I also discovered the gnomes imbued the rock around them with earth magic just by being there, which meant my earth magic absorption rate went up to about the same as my water magic absorption rate from the underground river.  Now if I could only find an enhanced source of air, or any source of fire, I’d be set.  For now, I still needed to transmute life force to get any fire magic, which is why I didn’t use it a lot.

My work with magic progressed, and I knew I was close to a breakthrough of a new kind.  Ebony had told me a lot of different ways to add more mob types.  The two I’d settled on had been to use animals and imbue them with magic to make them monsters, or wait until a dark creature came along and wanted to bond with me for a time.

Of course, I was now working on two other ways that were never mentioned.  First the golems which would take a long time, and the second was what my coming magical breakthrough was about.  I was very close to being able to summon and bind elementals.  I had a feeling I’d be adding elemental floors much sooner than the golem floors.

That meant I’d be creating more elemental stones, but not the multi-kind, I wanted to keep that little impossibility to myself, and the denizens of my dungeon.  Elementals generated magic, and while I couldn’t steal it from them based on summoning contracts, in other words I couldn’t use them as magical sources, they’d still radiate the magic of their elemental type out into the dungeon, raising the magical levels which stones could absorb.

They’d be perfect rewards, for mages and warriors alike.  Elemental stones could be bound into weapons and armor, as well as be a separate power source for mage spells.  I also thought it would attract stronger adventurers, which would lead to even higher types of magic and enchantments from the better equipment and spell books they entered my dungeon with.

Elementals were generally neutral in type, neither good nor evil. Or at least fire, earth, water, and air elementals.  The summoning and bonds were far different than a demonic summoning ritual, so it was taking time to figure it out.  I could already form the spell to summon one, but I wasn’t sure how to set the bindings yet so it would protect an area, and attack adventurers, yet not wander off.  I was also sure that trying to bind an elemental of light or dark magic would be folly, they were higher beings and could attract the wrong type of attention, which I didn’t need.  So, I wasn’t even going to try.

Elementals were also like demons in that they were spirit.  If the elemental body died on this mortal plane, their essence would return to their elemental plane and I could simply re-summon them.

I never took my eyes off the goal, to regain my freedom.  But… life was good.  I was having a blast learning magic, challenging the crazy humans, gaining power, and spending time with my two personal demons.  They were both mine, in word, deed, and magical bond.  Yet, the idea of treating them as less seemed wrong to me, so I simply didn’t.

When I finally met my enemies, it would be a different story altogether.

It was just as well I was enjoying this existence, because I knew I had a long way to go, and a lot more to learn…

Catalina grinned back at Sienna and then giggled.  That last fight had been crazy.  The last week had been fun as hell, and she already felt more confidence and control in her spellcasting.  She’d been having a great time with her cousin Jerrold, Suzy, and especially Sienna.

The only problem was her primary mission so far had been a bust.  The last week they’d been able to get through four and five, and while sometimes beat up, sometimes not, once they killed the level five boss chamber one or more of them would be out magic or stamina and need a rest, so they wound up leaving by the exit stairs and coming back to try the next day after some partying and resting.  She hadn’t forgotten her mission to investigate the core of the dungeon, but she couldn’t do that if she couldn’t even get there.

Her father showed understanding at her reports, but she could tell he was getting impatient.

She didn’t think it would be any different today, both Sienna’s and Suzy’s aura of magic was about a quarter of what it should be, and Jerrold looked a little fatigued, but still strong enough for at least the next fight.  Her?  Well she still had over three quarters of her magic left, naturally having so much of it.  It was no mystery where she got it from, her mother had been very powerful as well, and her father was at least a typical master.

Jerrold said, “Okay, boss room the same as last time, that seemed to work better than anything else we’ve tried.”

Sienna winked, “Don’t worry tough guy, we’ll take out those mean warriors for you.”

Suzy erupted in a giggle and then covered her mouth, giving her man an apologetic look.

She snorted, “Be nice.”

It was a weird discovery, they found her and Sienna could take out warriors easier than Jerrold, so now he went after the two mages, which were only protected by dark spells.  Dark spells that his holy sword cut through very quickly.

Sienna curtseyed in mock humility, “Your will princess.”

She rolled her eyes, but truthfully, she loved it.  Not many people had the guts to mock the next ruler, and admittedly turn her on by doing so.  They hadn’t spent a night apart since that first night, and she wasn’t quite sure what their relationship was now.  At first, she’d been surprised by her attraction, it wasn’t that she didn’t like women before, she’d just never even considered the idea.  But now… it seemed like much more than simply sharing and quenching their base needs after a day filled with adrenaline and magic.

She just wasn’t sure how much more, it was all a blur in her mind, the true affection she felt for Sienna, and the lust generated by life and death struggle, channeling so much magic, and the adrenaline rush.  Not to mention the pleasure, the never ending pleasure under her lover’s fingertips.

She shook her head to dismiss the haze of lust.  That was the problem, she couldn’t really judge where things stood in her own heart when her body was a hot mess.

Her cousin Jerrold took the teasing very well, he understood it was just a way to blow off steam after a particularly crazy encounter.  The fifth floor, mostly one large room, seemed to change configuration every night, so no plan worked twice.  It kept them on their toes, that was for sure.  In fact, the final boss fight was the only predictable part of the level.

Jerrold asked, “So, all set?”

She nodded, and they all walked into the last space together.  There were four warriors, two mages, and a succubus that even drew her eye.  She’d been told by other groups that was the basic group to fight against on the next level, kind of a sneak peek.  She was already wet from all the fighting and magic use, so the succubus being there was a more effective distraction than most would imagine.

She clenched her jaw and ignored the desire to strip off her robe, it was up to her to start out the fight.  Her large bolts of air would be little more than annoying at this stage, and weren’t so effective on levels four and five, so she’d studied up and practiced another spell.

She cast what appeared to be a bolt of air, and saw Jerrold take off at the same time toward the mages.  When the bolt hit, it exploded into a whirlwind that surrounded and battered the warrior.  It wasn’t just a normal whirlwind though, it was made up of air blades that would find all the crevices and openings in armor.  She prepared another one as Sienna’s fire bolt hit the whirlwind around the demon warrior.

The fire was sucked into it, and enhanced, essentially making it a firestorm.  Demons were resistant to fire on this level, but it still burned them by raising the temperature of their armor.  Resistant to fire didn’t mean resistant to burning hot metal.

The first two demons probably wouldn’t die from it, but it would eat their shields and harm them enough for what was coming.  The saving grace was the large room the fight took place in, and the last two demons ran at them in a rush, but they wouldn’t close the distance in time.  She’d practiced hard, and the spell only took a second or two for her to cast now.

Her and Sienna had the other two disoriented and surrounded by a firestorm of wind blades before they crossed half the distance.

At this point the succubus stopped trying to be sexy, and revealed her claws, but didn’t attack.  Sex demons didn’t fight unless cornered and attacked, and so far, they were simply ignoring her.

Jerrold grunted loudly across the room, as two spells hit him from the mages, but his armor and glowing sword protected him from both the curse and dark bolt.  She grinned, as he took a mage demon’s head with his first swing, the second one dodged a couple of times, but wound up impaled.

It was about that time when her whirlwind spells ran out of magic to maintain cohesion, and the bloody and harried looking demons growled as they took stock of the situation.  The truth was, while her spell was effective it was mostly a delaying action, and to whittle some or even most of their life energy.  She could probably blast them and kill them now, but she didn’t need to.  Before they decided on a course of action, Suzy’s incredibly long and complicated spell was finally complete.

There was a huge surge of light magic that filled the room, golden in aspect, and when it cleared the demon warriors were nothing but charred husks, and the succubus looked to be on the edge of death.  The exorcism spell was nasty on creatures with dark magic, area based, and only the completely unharmed succubus managed to live to see the end of it.  She wouldn’t live long.

Catalina sent an oversized air bolt, the succubus had no protections left, and certainly wasn’t wearing armor of any kind.  The air bolt blew the demonic hussy apart.

Jerrold said, “Next time I’ll just watch, you two looked bored there for a moment.”

She gave him a look of mock outrage, “We were guarding Suzy from the unexpected, so her long ass spell wouldn’t get interrupted.”

Suzy giggled, “And you did a good job.”

Jerrold rolled his eyes and gave up, which elicited more giggles from the three of them.  Giggling might seem out of place, but really the rush of relief after a fight made her and the others a bit giddy.  Especially a fight that went almost perfectly to plan.

They searched the corpses and found two weapons that were enchanted, good thing the demons never got close enough to use them.  There was also a chest with two healing potions, several silver coins, and two gold coins.  They also took the other weapons, even a sword without enchantment would net them some silver, possibly a gold if the quality was good enough.

Jerrold sighed, “I have an idea.”

Sienna said teasingly, “Uh oh, did you hurt yourself?”

Jerrold rolled his eyes, sometimes she wondered if they’d get stuck that way.  He did that a lot around her lover.

“We’re too tired again, and I’m guessing we will be tomorrow.  We’re improving fast, but it would take an adept level adventurer to get through all three of these levels without potions.  We could use this loot to buy extra mana and stamina potions.”

Suzy asked, “Do we need to beat the dungeon?  We’re getting good rewards, and growing fast.  I might even be a journeywoman now for all I know, I need to be tested.”

Damn, that was a really good point, and she couldn’t tell them that yes, they did need to beat the dungeon.  She hoped Jerrold had a good argument for it, because she was coming up blank.

Jerrold shrugged, “Probably not, but the rewards will be better on the next level.  Think of it like an investment.”

Sienna said, “Mana potions are expensive, and stamina only slightly less so.  That’s a hell of an investment, but I suppose we could try it just once at least, to see if it pays off.”

She tried for nonchalant when she agreed, “It wouldn’t hurt to try,” and felt a stab of guilt.  She knew she couldn’t tell them, but they’d had her back, as she’d had theirs.  She’d lost count the amount of times they’d saved each other, but her mission wasn’t something she could talk about.  Only her and her father were supposed to know about the true power of the dark crystal, but then there was the group of clerics and paladins from the crown city that seemed to know something.  One of them had disappeared, and the other four hadn’t done more than sit around the tavern all week.

Considering they weren’t going into the dungeon anymore, she could only assume they were waiting for orders.  Whatever it was they were waiting on, there was no rumor or talk about it.

Jerrold grunted, “Agreed then, let’s sell this stuff, buy the potions, and split what’s left.”

They went up the exit stairs, to the top of the dungeon and into the guild quarters.  The guild had done a lot of work on the place.  The repairs on the keep after three centuries of neglect, had gone rather quickly, but they had earth mages to make it happen.  As far as she knew this setup was complete.  Most dungeons were out in the middle of nowhere, and the guild certainly didn’t usually build their headquarters over the dungeon.

She supposed this would be a sweet post for a guild worker come winter, they’d never have to go outside.

She smiled and nodded at the familiar faces, and they went outside.  The inn and tavern was finished, and it was huge.  It was almost as big as the keep, and had sixty some odd rooms for adventurers now, which would translate to a lot more with shared rooms.  The last week had brought a steady stream of adventurer parties to fill them too.  In her opinion the food and drink had improved the last couple of days as well, maybe they got a new chef and supplier?

They walked past it to the market which was still growing.  It was made up of little shacks with open front walls, that would close over at night.  Everything dungeon or adventurer related could be bought or sold here.  In short, this holding was growing very quickly.

They got the stuff identified, which turned out to be extra sharp enchantments, that would never grow dull.  Then they sold all their loot for the day, which netted them almost fifty gold each, even after buying the potions which were a steep ten golds each.  There was a reason adventurers were willing to risk death in a dungeon, and not just for the rush.  There was a lot of coin in it, as well as the faster power growth.

Expensive potions like that were usually meant for emergencies, purchased once and left at the bottom of the pack in case an adventurer miscalculated and stayed too long.  Still, she’d hardly complain about it, she needed to get a look at the dungeon core.

She just wondered how she’d pull that off without her party becoming suspicious.  She also worried that her father would try to force her home once she completed her mission, and she started to make mental plans to avoid that outcome.

They returned to the tavern for drinks, a meal, to cool their ardor, and finally to get some sleep.  Tomorrow was a new day…

Chapter Nineteen

Carlton opened his eyes and looked at the window.  It was still pitch dark, not even false dawn yet.  He wondered what woke him up, when the door banged twice answering his question.  He grumbled as he got out of bed and slipped the robe over his head, and went to answer the door.

“Diana?  What are you doing here?”

She answered, “Sorry for waking you, but I wasn’t sure if this should wait.”

He cleared his throat, “Well come in, what is it?”

He left the door open and walked over to his table, and poured himself some water and drank it down.

Diana said, “A report came in from the training you have going on down south?”

He nodded, and felt semi-awake now, “I understand, what did they report?”

She replied, “There’s a small force gathering just south of the border, for the last couple of days.  About a hundred church soldiers, and a handful each of paladins and clerics.  They just ignored it at first, thinking it was a training exercise, or perhaps just a group to counter and watch our own training group.”

He raised an eyebrow, “So what changed?”

She replied, “We caught sight of the paladin acting as a courier, the one that went south instead of north.  He’s in their camp.”

He was really tired, and it took him a minute to connect the dots.  They’d failed to implicate the dungeon as unstable, but still wanted it destroyed.  So, they’d sent a message south, and now there was a small army camped on the border.  Shit.  They were going to sortie across the border to destroy the dungeon, and probably the holding and new outpost.

Was Verin mad? What could he possibly get for this that he would risk it?  He was also surprised that Jennesar would risk a war, but if they came in fast and hard, and retreated across the border the king might not march his army.  He shook his head, it was still a huge risk, the king could do just that.  After a bit more thought, he made a decision.

“Go tell the duke, try to persuade… never mind, I’ll do it myself.  Go wake Selwyn and Cory, you’ll be my escort.”

Diana narrowed her eyes, “Is that a good idea, to go against the highest’s wishes?”

Fucking Verin.

“Well, if the duke finds out I had this information, and his dungeon and outpost are burned out, he’ll hang me and rightly.  Verin on the other hand hasn’t shared his ambitions or his plans, so we have more leeway there to claim ignorance.  Plus, whatever the highest,” he said the title sarcastically, “is up to, it’s foolish and could lead to a purge of the church.”

Diana asked, “How do you know that?”

He shook his head and said angrily, “Because he’s playing with treason, which means the payoff has to be huge in some in way.  All or nothing gambles in politics is stupidity, always remember that, now do as I say.”

Diana bowed her head, “I didn’t mean to question your decision, just to seek understanding.”

He grunted, “I understand, go.  I need to prepare myself.  I’ll meet you three at the stables in a half hour.”

Diana bowed and backed out the room.  She was one of his smartest and most clever, as well as loyal, he hadn’t meant to snap but he was still half asleep, and far too angry with Verin’s chicanery by half.  He could hardly apologize though, so he’d make it up to her later.

He turned to get ready…

April said, “Any idea what’s going on with all the soldiers in town?  I saw them putting up some quick and dirty fortifications too.  It looks like the princess is in charge up there, and she looked angry enough to chew crossbow bolts.”

Selene replied, “I heard a rumor that Jennesar has a hard on for killing this dungeon, my brother’s girlfriend is in the guard at the duke’s castle, though I have no idea why.  Apparently, they’re worried we’ll be attacked by a force of soldiers.  As for Catalina, she’s probably pissed because she can’t delve today with all that’s going on.”

April shook her head, “With all the adventurers here?  Normal soldiers wouldn’t have a prayer.”

Selene snorted, “Most won’t care and will just protect themselves if attacked as they leave.  Especially the ones from other kingdoms.”

April frowned, “I suppose that’s not a huge surprise… wait.  This is new.”

They looked down a side hallway that appeared to dead end at a large chest.  The hallway was completely empty.

Selene said, “Hold on,” and casted a find traps spell.

The entire hallway lit up green.

“Holy shit,” Jared said.

April said intently, “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

Jared replied, “No way in hell?”

April frowned at the warrior, “No, that the stuff in that chest must be awesome.”

I pulled my focus back and sighed, they weren’t the only ones talking about the rumors.  Every adventurer group was speculating on the arrival of soldiers at the outpost, and stationed around the keep.  Jennesar, were they my true enemy?  The ones that had imprisoned, banished, and now wanted to utterly destroy me?  Why do the first two first, why not just the latter one?

So many questions, and so few answers.  There had to be a reason, and one day I’d discover it.  Maybe they had to banish me, because I wasn’t killable on the higher plane.  But how would that work?  I didn’t understand that, but it was the only thing that made sense.  Of course, I could just be missing a major piece of the puzzle.

Boduna had told me higher beings could only work through their church, or worshippers.  So, if Jennesar was after my destruction, did that means the gods of Jennesar were my true enemy?  Or… maybe it was just a small cult that worshipped something or someone else?

I kind of doubted the last, but it was a lot less daunting than having gods after me.  If my enemies were gods, what was I?  No, that was ridiculous.

There had to be something I could do, once I escaped that is, or they wouldn’t be trying so hard to kill me.  For now, I had to concentrate on not getting killed, and I wasn’t about to depend on soldiers to protect me.  I still needed far too much information, and to be at least partially free, before I could even think of going on the offensive.

Expanding would help there, but I wasn’t ready.  I did have the magic now to add three more levels, between my crystal growing and the deaths of stupid adventurers.  I had a surplus of life energy, to the point I summoned an incubus to keep the succubus company.  They’d been joined for days now, non-stop, with all the life energy they were holding.  It was other things holding me back.

I’d been experimenting, and could summon weaker elementals and control them enough to keep them in the right area.  I could even have them protect it zealously from adventurers.  But the more powerful ones were impossible to control.  The enchantments I created weren’t strong enough, or maybe not quite correct enough, and as a result only partially effective.

To keep up with ramping up the difficulty, I needed elementals in the high journeyman, or perhaps low adept class.  What I could do now safely, was high apprentice to mid journeyman, which was the same as the demon levels.

I was sure I could get it with more experimentation, but I didn’t have the luxury of waiting if I wanted to beef up the dungeon in time to meet an invasion to destroy me.  I couldn’t even double up on elementals in one spot to raise the difficulty, because they didn’t play well together.  They didn’t hate or attack each other, except the opposing elements, they just wouldn’t coordinate with each other, and would get in each other’s way more often than not.

“Sexy?”

“Yes Nurien?” my favorite imp asked.

I told her my problem, what the urgency was about, and she looked thoughtful for quite a while.

Ebony said, “Switch it around.  Put the elementals between the undead and the demons.  You can just give the demons better armor, weapons, and enchantments, and maybe add one or two more per encounter to raise those three levels to the higher journeyman or lower adept level.”

That… was an amazingly simple and brilliant idea.  Why didn’t I think of that?

“I kind of love you right now,” I said, as I cast an air spell to caress and pinch her butt.

She gasped and grinned, and then said sultrily, “Don’t start something you can’t finish right now Nurien, get to work, who knows when they’ll get here.”

I sighed, I wasn’t sure how much I could do while the dungeon was full of people.  I dropped the gnome level about a hundred feet, moving the rock around it and sinking their cavern down.  That took less power than I’d expected, so I immediately started to build levels seven, eight, and nine.  It went quickly, mostly because I made them exactly the same as levels four, five, and six. I also created a new token to give people access to a shortcut straight to level six, at the stairs down to level seven.

In my mind, I adjusted the party sizes for the demons, weapons and armor, and would make available rewards with the more powerful enchantments I’d developed but were holding back as too powerful a reward until now.

Of course, they wouldn’t get the token until they’d killed the last elemental room on six, even if they’d already defeated the dungeon in the past.

Once I was done with all that, I was stuck for a while, but I planned out my revamp of four, five, and six in my mind for later when the adventurers had cleared out.

Level four would have pools of water, streams, and lots of stone formations for the earth and water elementals to use.  I went ahead and created several water and earth elemental stones as rewards, some to be randomly hidden, and some in chests with other rewards, such as rings that would have protections against certain elements.  I planned carefully to match the apprentice level five, or journeyman level one rating that level four currently had.

On a whim, I left the boss for level four as the succubus and incubus temptation room.  And I built a harder final room for level seven.  I settled on a large demon warrior decked out with enchanted armor and weapons, with three imps as backup.

Level five I would leave the extremely high ceiling to provide room for the air elementals to stretch a bit, and more water elementals slightly more powerful than the ones on level four, on the ground with more pools and streams.  More elemental stones of the matching types, just with a little higher of a capacity, and I also added a number of the simpler gnomish traps.  Level five should still match the current journeyman three designation.

Level six I’d carve out a little higher than it was now, and increase the difficulty of more powerful air elementals, earth elementals, and finally put in some fire elementals.  Between the stronger elementals, and more diverse mobs, it should put the difficulty at Journey five which was the same as the current dungeon final level.  I created yet more elemental stones, and other rewards.

Level seven, since it started a new section, would be journey five as well.  I tried to adjust the demon level’s eight and nine to be adept level one and level two respectively, but really, I was just guessing.  I’d have to wait for the guild to reassess before I knew for sure.

Once the day’s adventurers left, I’d block off the entrance and connect the sixth and seventh floors together, move the demons, revamp, summon the elementals, set the rewards, and sink my and Ebony’s homes down to the last room in level nine.  If a crypt can be called a home.  That shouldn’t take more than a few hours to get it done, the hard part of carving out the new levels would be done before nighttime fell.

Now, how would I waste time until then?  A part of me was still experimenting with elementals to control the more powerful ones, building layers on my crystal, watching the gnomes, experimenting with enchantments and spells, listening to the rumors as I watched the adventurers.  Still, I felt the stress of waiting, what if Jennesar attacked before I could finish my expansion tonight?

Lila said sultrily, “I can think of a way to be… distracting.”

Now that was a good idea, purely as stress relief.  Oh, I wasn’t kidding anyone, was I? I was as much hers, as she was mine.

Lila laughed throatily…

Chapter Twenty

Catalina smiled in contentment.  She was so warm, lethargically so in a good way, and Sienna’s warm naked body against hers made her feel decadent.  She really didn’t want to get up this morning, but the signs of dawn outside the window disagreed.  She felt a surge of affection for the beautiful redhead in her arms, and the way Sienna made her feel.

How much of that feeling was simply because of the time they spent together and how they spent it?  It worried her, that she might be falling in love.  She was next in line, she had a duty to marry and have kids.  She and Sienna as wonderful as it was, couldn’t possibly last once her adventuring days were over.

Which she hoped was years from now, long after she reached master status.  Her father was still relatively young, and mages lived a very long time, at least master mages did.  Still, she hadn’t expected this, they were supposed to be close friends, confidants, with benefits.  Not truly lovers, like it appeared they were heading for.

Sienna sighed breathily in her arms, and made cute wake up sounds that struck her right in the heart.  Damn, she was doomed.

Sienna said softly, “Yesterday was a nightmare.  Think we can dive today?”

She giggled naughtily, “Didn’t we do that last night?”

Sienna laughed throatily, “Wicked princess,” and pinched her ass.

She sighed, “I’d love to. To be honest, I’ve been looking forward to beating the dungeon.  But… I can’t risk fighting all day and being exhausted if they attack.  The southern border is only twenty miles, they could get here and start fighting almost as soon as the scouts got back to report they were moving.”

She’d even briefly considered letting them try.  Wasn’t that the ultimate goal?  To figure out how to destroy the stone so it didn’t fall into the wrong hands?  The more she thought about it, that sounded like a shitty reason to destroy something that hadn’t done them harm, dark magic or not.  More than that, it was benefiting her future duchy no matter what its motivations.

But even without those second thoughts she’d been having about the stone’s usefulness, the political ramifications of letting another kingdom act in force on her soil made such ideas impossible.  Any invading force from Jennesar must be destroyed to the last man, to do anything else would be to show weakness to an overly ambitious neighboring kingdom.

Jennesar was not a nice place.  The church of light there ruled with an iron fist, killed anyone that worshipped outside of their pantheon, and forced worship of all their peasants.  It was the kind of thing that happened when there was no balancing power.  Even gods could be corrupted by power if they had too much influence on the mortal plane through their clerics.

Nysten was better in her opinion, where the church was powerful, but ultimately balanced out by the nobility who ruled over matters regarding this world.  The church stuck to the soul, and promoting some influence and magic through worship which benefited the gods as well.  It was a balanced society, where individuals could go their own way if they wanted.  Perhaps not perfectly, perfection was just a myth of the foolish and ignorant, but much better than Jennesar.

Sienna replied, “Good point, maybe we should stay in bed then, get more… rest.”

She snorted, “Nope, I have to be seen, and inspect the progress of our hasty fortifications.  Moral is important, and I’m a princess.”

Sienna giggled, which turned into an outright laugh, before she said, “Awesome, now I’ve got you mocking yourself.”

She bit Sienna’s shoulder, and then kissed it.

“Breakfast time, peasant.”

Sienna laughed harder, “I’m a lady you know.  One step above a peasant.”

She teased, “I noticed,” and pinched her lover’s butt as she rolled out of bed, escaping a counter attack.

When they got down to the common room there were a number of adventurers talking excitedly.  They walked over to where Jerrold and Suzy were already seated.

“What’s going on?”

Jerrold said, “The dungeon closed up last night, and this morning after a little investigation its different.  The undead are still there on top, in the catacombs.  But someone with a token went down to level four to peek and come back up, apparently the demons are gone, replaced by elementals.  I think the demon floors might have been moved down or something.”

She grunted, “Why do you think that?”

Jerrold said, “There’s a new token imprint on the exit door.  The old one still says three, but there’s a new one that says six.  My guess is there’s nine levels, if the dungeon is still following the same pattern.  It’s just a guess though.  Either way, conquering the dungeon just got much harder.”

Shit, she hadn’t thought of that yet.  Damn it.  Just when they were finally going to reach the end.

She sighed, “Sorry, I’m dying to check it out, but with things the way they are.  You guys can go if you want?”

Jerrold waved that off, “No way, we’ll wait, and defend the town with you if necessary.  Don’t forget cousin, I’m royalty too, and I take my responsibilities as seriously as you do.”

She nodded, “Of course, I didn’t mean to imply otherwise.  Any other rumors this morning?”

Suzy said, “I heard the guild requested a master level team, but they won’t be here for three days.”

Sienna asked, “Why?”

Suzy shrugged, “Bottom line most likely.  The guild makes a lot of money assisting and rating adventurers, and making things safer by rating the dangers.  I imagine they’d take a dim view of anyone destroying a very stable and money making dungeon.  The thing was only found a short time ago, and it’s already expanded again.  There’s speculation the new levels must reach into the lower adept rating at least, which would attract a lot more adventurers once verified.”

She smiled, Suzy was very shy.  She thought that might be the most she’d ever heard the cute cleric say.  She also thought her ideas were right, the dungeon was already covering four of the five mortal ratings.  There were higher ones of course, but most humans couldn’t get past master, not without assistance from a higher being anyway.  The mortal body could only hold so much power before changing from beneficial to harmful.

Master level mages, clerics, or warriors could live for a very long time, but if they grasped too much power it wouldn’t be good.

Jerrold said with mock gravity, “I heard a rumor, apparently our princess is shacking up with a wild fire mage.”

She glared, and was about to reply mock sharply when there was a loud scuffle by the door which drew her attention.  A soldier came in out of breath, looked around, and then came right at her.  She felt her stomach sink.

“They’ll be here in less than an hour,” the out of breath scout said without preamble.

She stood up, “Listen up!” and waited for the conversations to die down.  Once everyone was looking at her she said, “If you’re going to defend the outpost, keep, and dungeon, it’s time to get where you should be.  Anyone else, it’s time to go.  I’d suggest heading for Tenemin and get yourselves behind the walls, for those of you going, please pass the word in the marketplace.”

She looked at the soldier, “Make sure that happens, the merchants, cooks, and servants have no place here during battle, then report back to your unit.”

He saluted and followed the stampede out the door.

She took one more bite of her biscuit, finished off her morning tea, and then followed.  She was surprised as she saw a few adventurers going into the dungeon.  She looked around and her eyes narrowed, as she realized the four assholes from the crown city were missing.  She hadn’t seen them in the tavern as she had every other morning the last week.  Just one more thing to worry about, and she wondered what they could be doing.  Whatever it was, it probably wasn’t good.  She should have arrested them a long time ago, but had no proof of wrongdoing, just stupidity.

“Let’s get to the fortifications, if you see those two paladins and two clerics from the crown city, let me know.”

The keep itself was well fortified by walls, and a wagon sized gate that was closed.  The outpost itself was now surrounded by stakes, shallowly dug pits, and other obstacles.  She had almost two hundred soldiers, including ten paladins and five clerics that Carlton was leading personally.  The problem was the perimeter was too large to defend well without real walls.  They couldn’t assume the just over a hundred coming were the only ones, and focus everyone at one point.

Granted, they had more people facing south, but they still had to have a small amount on the eastern, western, and even the Northern approaches which spread them a bit thin.

It was a short time later when the enemy came into view.  She counted ten squads of ten of the Jennesar church soldiers, who were just normal soldiers for the state side of their church.  She also counted six paladins, and five clerics toward the back, one of the paladins was older, and she could feel his master aura from here.  He was obviously in charge.

The man walked in front, his sword glowing brightly even in the morning sun.  She thought it strange, he should look evil, but he really didn’t.  The aura from the sword felt holy, and she knew it was a relic, not just a simple enchantment of light.  He was in gleaming full plate steel armor, yet he moved easily and lithely, like he was wearing simple cloth.

“Princess, I know you are here.  I am Light Bishop Commander Salvatore.  Surrender and stand aside, none of your soldiers need bleed or die today.  We are here to deal with the evil dungeon.  You have no idea what you harbor here in ignorance.  You have my word, once our mission is complete we will withdraw back across the border.  If you resist, we will cut you all down, and burn everything to the ground.”

Catalina said loud enough to be heard by all, “I am princess Catalina, heir to duchy Tenemin.  You have committed an act of war by bringing Jennesar troops onto Nysten soil.  Turn around now, and you may leave.  Stay, pursue this madness, and you will be shown no mercy and no quarter.  If the dungeon is truly evil, present your proof, and we will deal with it as is our right.  Only Jennesar would be foolish enough to send an army, if a letter would do.”

The bastard almost sounded sad as he said, “I but do my god’s bidding, let the results be upon your head.  Charge!”

The soldiers rushed at them, and she stopped herself from casting a spell.  She needed to let the soldiers deal with soldiers, and magic deal with magic.  She couldn’t see past the dust and destruction, as the first wave of soldiers mindlessly sacrificed themselves to open a hole in the hastily built fortifications.  Then it was hand to hand, sword to sword, as her soldiers fought theirs.

Her eyes narrowed as their clerics didn’t cast any spells, and she didn’t see a paladin.  She heard a scream to her right.

She looked around, and gasped as she saw more soldiers, the clerics, paladins, and the leader coming from the west.

“Back row, swing right!”

While the front of her forces continued to fight the soldiers, the ones in the back shifted into a phalanx formation to face the attack from the side.  She got ready to start casting as the enemy rushed forward.  Their position was between the keep, and the inn and marketplace.

But the charge on their flank from soldiers, and all the paladins and clerics suddenly stopped.

Salvatore smirked at her, and then the gates of the keep opened and fifty soldiers, five clerics, and his five paladins rushed in.

She stared in disbelief at the open gates, and then her eyes narrowed with fury as she recognized the four missing crown assholes.  She’d torture them to death for their treason, but later.  Their plan had worked and taken her by surprise, but only because it was stupid.  Never leave an enemy behind you.

“Carlton!”

“Yes Princess.”

She sighed, “Stay up here and clean up these soldiers with my troops, and secure the area.  My party and I, and these twenty soldiers are going after them, do you have anyone that can help?”

Carlton said, “I’ll give you my best team,” and then he yelled, “Diana, Selwyn, Cory!”

Two paladins and a cleric came running over.  She could feel their strength, and they were very high journeymen, if not adept.

Carlton said, “Follow the princess’s orders.”

“Thanks Carlton, good luck.  We have to stop him.”

They followed her at a jog into the keep grounds, and then into the building.  There were a lot of guild people dead, and she ran up the stairs to the guild master’s office.  Donnell’s head was lying on his desk, and Selwyn ran over to him and checked him with a light spell.

Selwyn muttered grimly, “Poisoned.  He was probably the only one they couldn’t face in a fair fight.  Lesser men would be dead by now.  Give me a minute.”

Selwyn cast another couple of spells, one to remove poison, and one to heal.

Donnell may have been an old man, but he jumped up and went to the corner and grabbed a Warhammer that glowed a disturbing and muddy red.  He looked angry, and was all business.

“What’s the situation?”

She felt a little relieved, not sure she could have faced a master, not even with their whole group.  It was why she felt the delay of checking on him was worth it.  Still, she worried Donnell was a little old.

“Jennesar invaded with a small force, they have sixty some odd people in the dungeon, along with four traitors from the church of light, and they want to destroy the heart.”

Donnell growled, “Let’s go, no time for dawdling,” and he started out of the room.

Bemusedly, the rest of them followed, the old man moved fast…

Chapter Twenty-One

I have to admit, the way they moved through the first three levels without stopping was daunting.  I managed to take out ten soldiers on level three, only because I think the master paladin out front simply missed seeing the undead there.  Then, there were about fifteen guild people murdered upstairs.  They weren’t in the dungeon proper, but they were within my reach.

Regardless, I summoned a whole bunch of succubae and incubi to hold all the life forces, and expanded my disconnected room to a disconnected cavern filled with beds.  If I managed to live through this, I’d add another fifty life forces at the very least, to those twenty-five.  Honestly, I wasn’t sure if they could even break my crystal, if it had been flawless with me still asleep I’d say no, but with the imperfection I knew I was no longer invulnerable, not if hit perfectly.

Plus, even if they couldn’t break the prison part of the crystal, I was sure they could destroy the outer layers which held the power I could use in the outside world.  That would be just as bad, even if they had to take me with them on their way out, impotent and helpless.  Regardless, I was at a hundred percent capacity right now, with more life forces than I knew what to do with.

I could use it all to expand the dungeon later, but I didn’t have the crystal power capacity yet to support three more levels, much less fifty.

But still scared.  Did I have anything that could stop even a sole master?  I doubted it.  My only chance was the group that followed catching up, and I hated feeling helpless.  I continued to do all the things I usually do, including building out my crystal, it gave me something to focus on.

“Hey sexy?”

Ebony flew over and lay down on her side on top of the crypt, posing sexily, “Yes Nurien?”

“Umm, why don’t you go visit the gnomes for a while.  They’re almost done with the first big room puzzle trap, that’s got to be interesting.”

Ebony frowned, “I don’t want to leave you.”

“You’ll still be in me, just not in this room.”

She sighed and rolled her eyes, “You know what I mean.”

“I do, and I don’t want you in danger.”

I could just order her to do it, but then she’d be mad at me forever if I lived through it.

Lila huffed.

“Shush, I’d save you too, if I could,” I directed inwardly.

Ebony said, “I’ll not try to fight, but I’m going to stay and watch from my home.  I promise to run if…” she trailed off.

That was probably the best I’d get from her, so I took it.

Salvatore was frightening, as he slashed into and dispelled all the elementals on level four.  Level five was a completely different story.  It was open, large, and not a straight path.  It offered all sorts of opportunities to pick off people in the back and from the sides.  Between the elementals and gnomish traps, I killed two paladins and fifteen more soldiers.

That left Salvatore, three paladins, five clerics, and twenty-five soldiers going down the stairs to level six.  I decided at that point to start micromanaging, and the earth elementals hid in the walls and ground until Salvatore passed, and bludgeoned more soldiers to their deaths.  The air elementals bludgeoned them from a distance with air bolts and suffocated those in the back up close, all out of range of that blasted sword.  Some of those were taken out by the clerics and paladins, but not easily.  The fire elementals couldn’t really hide, and despite being my strongest elementals, they earned a quick dismissal from Salvatore’s sword.  That man moved entirely too fast for the armor he was in.

By the end of floor six, I had them whittled down to Salvatore, two paladins, three clerics, and ten soldiers.  Soldiers really didn’t belong in here, they had the power of initiates, and the sergeants and officers might have qualified as apprentices.

Not that I was keeping count, but I now had fifty-nine life forces, which would make it all worth it if I survived.

To my surprise, floor seven took out the rest of the soldiers, the little imps were flying, mobile, and not stupid enough to go anywhere close to Salvatore.  In the end a mass exorcism took them down, but it took the clerics time to cast it room by room.  It was the lack of mages that were biting them in the ass there, and it slowed them down a little bit.

Regardless, I now had sixty-nine life forces, and there were only six of them left.  Unfortunately, they were the strongest.  One master, a cleric adept, and four journeymen, two of each class of middle level, all headed down the stairs to level eight.

The most terrifying part was I was dropping loot, and they didn’t stop for it.  It was good loot, perhaps too good, and a sad effort to slow them a little.

The old man, along with the princess and a few others were just getting to level five.  I wished I could play favorites, but the best I could do was to not micro-manage the elementals to pick off the weak ones.  I wasn’t a real dungeon, and actually could have simply cleared the way for them, but I didn’t want to give the ones coming to save me a reason to kill me, which meant acting like a real dungeon.  So… I just rooted for them instead and felt frustrated every time they had to slow down.  Still, Donnell was moving just as fast as Salvatore, and his huge glowing maul was just as scary as the holy sword.  I just needed to slow the bastard down a little.

The eighth level’s ambushes did slow him down, but the arrows and spells all seemed to just bounce off his armor or get blocked by his sword.  I micromanaged them, and managed to take down another cleric and paladin, the journeyman level ones unfortunately, the adept cleric was just fine.  I’d wounded the others multiple times, but the clerics kept healing.  Unless I got lucky with a kill shot they wouldn’t stay down long.

Four left.  Salvatore, Cleric Adept, and then one of each, a paladin and cleric journeyman, as they went down the stairs to the ninth floor.

Dungeons weren’t supposed to fight back, the crystals I mean.  Ebony had made that clear.  But would I really not fight back?  I could wield all six elemental spheres, and had more power than a master.  I’d also like the believe I had a stronger grasp of the nature of magic and its configurations than any mortal wielder of magic, even if in a limited fashion.

If my life depended on it, damn right I was going to strike back.  The problem was, if it came down to that, I might lose my unwitting allies in my race for freedom, power, and revenge against those that wronged me.  It may not even help, that sword was holy and his armor was highly resistant to magic.

Salvatore said, “Stay here, somehow Donnell survived.  I can feel his aura and they’re coming fast.  Delay them, I can’t fight both Donnell and that cursed stone at the same time.  Grigori is in charge, then Samantha.  Hold long enough, and I’ll be back to get us out of here.”

Grigori said, “Yes sir, good luck sir.”

Salvatore snorted dismissively and strode off.

“Lila?”

Lila asked acidly, “What?” clearly terrified.

“I love you.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Twenty minutes ago…

Carlton thought this would be easy.  Only fifty soldiers, at a chokepoint, with no opposing clerics.  The princess had left him a hundred and eighty soldiers, a hundred of which were blocking the chokepoint, and he still had ten paladin initiates, four apprentices, and eight clerics around the apprentice range.

It should have been easy.  Kill them all, bury the bodies.  Hell, none of the buildings were even damaged yet.

But right after Catalina slipped into the keep, he caught four shadows climbing down the keep walls with rope.  Bastard traitors.  Fuck Verin, he wasn’t letting them get away, not without questioning them to an inch of their lives, and handing them over to the duke.

It was the right thing to do.  Besides, if his instincts about this were right, he may become the highest when all is said and done.  High cleric in crown city sounded like a cushy job.  After that asshole Verin hangs.

He moved to grab all the paladins, but then the second shoe dropped, and twenty dressed in white came in from the south.  A second wave of clerics and paladins, a quick count showed five of the former, and fifteen of the latter.  They must have been camped another mile south out of range, and marched at the same time.

Well.  Shit.  No wonder Salvatore took all his paladins and clerics when they went in the keep.

“Sam, grab four clerics and five more paladins, and get after those four traitors.  I want them alive if possible, at least one of the traitorous bastards.”

Then he started to cast, hoping that doing that wasn’t a mistake.  Now he had four clerics, four paladin initiates, and four paladin apprentices.  Plus, a whole lot of soldiers.  But then, he was the only master on the field.  They were also outside in the open, and under the sky, a cloudy sky.

He finished his spell, and felt a surge of magic leave him that was so strong that he felt exhausted for a moment.

As the clouds rolled angrily, the enemy paladins charged, and the clerics started to cast.

They never finished, the sky was loosed with lightning, strike after strike struck down the Jennesar’s clerics and paladins.  Some died outright, others simply faltered in both their spell casting, and their charges.  As soon as the sky stopped raining lightning, his clerics let loose with their own spells of light magic, paralyzing some, making others sleep, and his paladins charged in and easily killed the enemy’s shocked and confused formation.

Then his paladins turned and attacked the Jennesar church soldiers from the rear, and grinded them against the duke’s soldiers.  It was violent, short, and bloody, as the Jennesar soldiers panicked.  In hardly any time at all they were all dead.  But there’d been a cost.  Over sixty of the duke’s soldiers died, including the twenty that were overwhelmed on the right flank.  He lost two of the paladins, and three others were healed barely in time.

Now all he had to do was pick up the pieces, and heal the wounded.

He looked over toward the tree line, and hoped Sam caught those assholes, alive.  If not, if they escaped or died, he doubted Verin would get caught.  The high cleric over the entire church of light, or as they call him the highest, can’t be questioned without proof, much like a noble.  If they escaped back to Verin, he was sure the bastard would kill them to cover his own tracks.  No, it was either they were caught now, or he’d never see them again…

Catalina felt guilty, she should have never taken the twenty soldiers.  The new dungeon setup was a lot tougher, and they didn’t have time to learn how to fight elementals, and what kind of tactics they used.  It cost them in blood and lives to learn.

The demons were stronger, faster, better armed and armored now.  She’s might have advanced the last week or so, but she was still on the low end of journeywoman in knowledge and control, and these demons were close to the other end of that spectrum, if not adept.

They didn’t have all that much trouble on level seven, the imps were more numerous but still weak enough where a fire bolt or air bolt would kill while the warriors took care of the melee.

It was the eighth floor that was a bitch, and where she lost the last soldier.  She’d been spending her mana recklessly, but still had about half of it.  Jerrold didn’t look too bad though, he’d fought when necessary but otherwise left things up to Donnell and Diana, who was one scary ass paladin.

The four of them, her, Jerrold, Sienna, and Suzy had been at the back of the party, watching for attacks from that direction.  The soldiers, paladin Cory and the cleric Selwyn were in the middle to assist in any direction, and Diana was up front with master Donnell.

Luckily, if it could be considered that, they’d only lost the soldiers when the demons had outmaneuvered them badly, and flanked them from the side instead.  It’d been ugly.

So, she was feeling rather guilty as they entered the stairs on the way down in the same formation, and not thinking clearly at all when she heard the footsteps behind them.  The stairwells were always safe, it was a place they could relax a moment before returning to vigilance.  The enemy were ahead of them, and her mind wasn’t in the right place.  Plus, she’d passed a bunch of crazy adventurers, who despite not taking sides were fighting in the dungeon.

She dismissed the sound, her grief and regret clouding her judgement, along with everything else.

Two things happened at once.  One, the entrance between the alcove and first room on level nine disappeared in a cave-in.  The second thing would haunt her for the rest of her life.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched as a paladin’s blade exited the front of Sienna’s chest.  She watched the light go out in her lover’s eyes in complete shock, as a dagger was shoved into her side.  The pain was intense, but it woke her up.  She screamed the simple one word spell as she waved her hand at the paladin behind her, throwing a huge amount of mana behind it.  The Jennesar paladin’s head blew off, and then exploded into blood, flesh, and bone fragments.  The backlash of wind from the extra strong spell in the confined space of a small staircase threw her back against the opposite wall where her head bounced off the stone.

Then she fell to the floor and passed out…

Catalina felt numb as she woke up, and saw the look of pain and loss on Suzy’s face.

Sienna was gone, and she didn’t know how to process that.  It was always a danger, they risked death every time they went down in the dungeon.  But… never in a million years did she think it would be her fault.  Why hadn’t she turned her head, why hadn’t she checked?  Why hadn’t Sienna?

She felt her anger grow, there were still Jennesar invaders that were alive, which meant more she could kill.  It was her fault her lover was dead, but she wasn’t stupid enough not to share the blame with the ones that invaded her family’s domain.  At least the one that actually killed her lover was already dead.

She must not have been out very long, “What’s going on up there?”

Diana said, “This is really unstable, I think Donnell could knock a hole with that maul of his, but it might make more stone collapse down behind it.  I wish we had an earth mage with us.  There’s also two more behind here, a cleric and a paladin.  I’m sorry about your friend, but I bet they thought he’d kill more of us.”

Diana winced, realizing how stupid that must have sounded, even if it was the truth.

Maybe she’d lost her mind, but she marched down to the alcove they were all stuffed in, brought up a spell of air, and shoved it forward into the rock pile.  It pulverized the rock it hit, but other than that didn’t do much.

Just as she was about to do it again, the rocks seemed to melt, and the arch reformed revealing a paladin and cleric, just as Diana said.

She shot another spell, which fizzled on the paladin’s armor.  She didn’t get a second chance.

Both Diana and Donnell lunged forward.  Diana’s sword led and ran through the cleric’s chest like a stick into water.  Donnell’s swing crushed the paladin’s armor, and sent him flying about twenty feet, right into a group of demons which tore him apart.

Donnell grimaced, “One left, but he’s almost in the last room.”

They charged forward rather recklessly.  She didn’t mind, she still wasn’t thinking clearly.  The fact that she was stupid enough to get soldiers killed, had distracted her, and got Sienna killed.  The guilt was overwhelming.  She might have been reckless, but she was very focused.  She wasn’t going to let her cousin or Suzy die too…

“You love me?” Lila asked.

Oh, dear goddess, what had I been thinking.  Oh right, I was about to die and was feeling rather sentimental, or perhaps maudlin was a better description.  Except, I had seventy-four life forces now, and I really wanted one more.  That asshole’s armor was awesome, I needed to see the enchantments on it.

Well, I’d either get my wish, or be dead.  So… no disappointment to worry about.  Still, I’d fixed the entrance, maybe they’d get here in time.  To… you know, watch me die painfully.

“Yes,” I said nonchalantly.

Lila chuckled, “I… care about you.  More than I thought possible.   I don’t think I can actually love anyone though, there’s too much anger and hate in me, and it’s all twisted around my soul.  I can probably only feel this much for you because I don’t have a body right now, so it’s not as strong.  But you have my loyalty, lust, and desire, for what that’s worth.”

Well, did I really have to fight him?  Couldn’t I take the coward’s way out and simply sink into the ground until he goes away?  Dungeons aren’t allowed to fight back, or hide, but I could.  Call it pride, I really didn’t like that cowardly option at all.  Not sure if I was being brave or stupid, but there it was.  When the moment came, I’d fight.

Sort of fight, I had a spell ready, and a plan.

Salvatore was fighting the boss mob.  The mob actually got in a few hits before being cut in half.  I winced as he strolled into the room.  Donnell was just five rooms away, but I didn’t think he’d get here in time if I didn’t cheat a whole lot.

Salvatore laughed as he approached the crypt, and flipped the stone cover off like it was nothing.

“Hello Nurien, and goodbye.”

I struck out with my spell then, even as I wondered how he knew my name, before he could swing.  I brought up the complex magical form and filled it with magic from all six elemental spheres, and then released it.  It used up about a quarter of my available mana, but it was more than worth it if it worked.

It wasn’t an attack, not exactly.  I feared his armor would defeat any direct magical attack and then I’d be dead.  It was a trap instead.  Fire, air, water, earth, light, and dark all formed a sphere around him, and slowed down time within the sphere to a crawl.  The magic was also self-cloaking, each opposing element perfectly combined and canceled out the aura of its opposite, no one outside the room would detect it, and once it settled, it was invisible.

One second in that sphere would be several hours out here.  I could do so much now to finish it, just open up the earth below his feet, and let him drown in stone.  I could move the sphere below water, or pull all the air away so he suffocates.

I did none of that, and was determined to take a risk.  I didn’t want Donnell, and the others to believe I killed someone directly.  I was still too weak, I needed allies, unwitting though they may be, and not enemies.  I wished I could trust them to be on my side, but I knew they wouldn’t be, even if we shared Jennesar as an enemy.  I was a dark power that was far too powerful not to be feared, or coveted, even if I had no intention to harm anyone in Nysten, and I didn’t, they wouldn’t take that chance.

They’d call in a dungeon killer team, and I’d be facing many powerful masters, instead of just one.

But it was a risk, I’d have to release the spell as Donnell came in, and hope he’d attack Salvatore before the bastard tried to split me with his sword.  If I waited too long, Donnell would suspect something with Salvatore so still, and if I released it too early Donnell would have no chance of intervening.

As Donnell set foot in the room at a run I released the spell…

Chapter Twenty-Three

Carlton sighed, “Get the armor and weapons off the enemy dead, and just set up one big bonfire.  Police and prepare our own dead for burial.”

The soldier saluted, and he felt a little strange.  The princess must trust him to put him in temporary command of soldiers like this.  The field was a mess, body parts and burnt grass and ground, places that looked like glass from the lightning strikes.  However, not one building was even scratched as far as he could tell.  Which was good.  After the cleanup, it would be like it didn’t happen.

He almost groaned out loud as he saw Sam come out of the tree line, four of his paladins carrying what were clearly four corpses, the rest of the team surrounding them in a defensive posture.  It took a few minutes for Sam to reach him.

Sam said, “I’m sorry sir, we found them three miles away, throats cut.  Whoever did this, they didn’t see it coming.”

He bit his tongue to prevent curses from spewing out.

“Understood, search them, and then dump the on the enemy pyre.  These traitors will not get honored with a proper burial.”

Sam nodded sharply, and his face looked approving of his orders, as he walked off with his team to the scorched field.  It really was the best place for a pyre, the field was already toast.

He wondered just how screwed he was, Verin was a damned snake, and he’d just lost any chance to prove it.

She ran in right behind Donnell.  She’d had doubts the old man could take the master from Jennesar, but Donnell grunted and swung his hammer hard, hitting Salvatore in his side just as Salvatore started to swing his sword up.  Salvatore no doubt had plans to swing it back down as well, but that wasn’t to be.  There was a loud crack, and Salvatore went flying into the wall fifteen feet away, and landed on his ass.

She gaped, Salvatore’s armor was dented, and its magic aura gone.  Holy shit, Donnell’s weapon, the red aura must be a breaker aura.  She’d heard of them but never seen one before.  Never mind that, the asshole didn’t have armor any longer, at least not a magical one.

She cast a whirlwind blade spell, which made the bastard scream, but he still had his sword.  With a quick swing of it, the spell fell apart under the holy aura.  Damnit, she’d just have to watch then.  Or, maybe not.

She cast the speed spell onto Donnell to make him even more deadly, and then she watched as Donnell moved in like lightning, and slammed the head of the maul against Salvatore’s sword arm.

There was a loud crack, and Salvatore dropped the sword.

Salvatore said, “Stop, you don’t understand, its…”

Whatever Salvatore might have said was cut off, as Donnell’s maul crushed his chest.  The sounds of his ribs and sternum breaking were very sharp, and Salvatore spit up a river of blood and breathed his last.

She felt satisfaction at his death, they were all dead.  But she needed to send a message, a strong one.  One that left no room for misunderstandings.  She was also out of paper.

She walked over and cast an air blade spell, and took Salvatore’s head.

Diana grabbed Salvatore’s sword, and was studying it.  No one argued with her about it either.

Jerrold said, “What’s the head for?”

She smiled grimly, but felt nothing.  She was empty.

“It’s a message, for the ruler of Jennesar.  I guess I’ll need a box.”

Even she was disturbed by how dead her voice was.  Just like Sienna.

Donnell said, “Thank you for your assistance in defending the dungeon.”

She tilted her head, “What I did was destroy an invader.  That I happened to save this dungeon is well and good, but wasn’t my purpose.  My only purpose was to destroy our enemy, and deny him his goal.”

Donnell sighed, and his look of true understanding and shared sorrow almost made her burst out in tears, the man had obviously lost his fair share of comrades, and perhaps lovers, but she pushed it down inside, it wasn’t time yet to grieve.

She walked over to the crypt and stared down into it, a large black crystal sat there.  It had a very powerful aura, but no more so than one would expect from a nine-level dungeon.  She wondered what it really was, and what it was hiding.

She had no idea yet… if Jennesar wanted it destroyed, maybe they should let it be, even protect it.

She suppressed a laugh, and wondered if she was mad.

Jerrold said, “We should go.”

She nodded, and followed her cousin and Suzy toward the exit stairs…

Epilogue

Catalina stared up at the castle, her ancestral home.  She was still bowed with grief, but no longer dead inside.  No, now she was angry, and her only target for that anger was herself, and the entire kingdom of Jennesar.  She smirked, she couldn’t exactly invade, so she was stuck with self-castigation.

She didn’t really want to come home, but when Jerrold had suggested finding a new fourth so they could go back in the dungeon, just three days after her beloved’s funeral, she’d almost killed him.  The magic was in her fingertips, and her tongue begged to say the words.  That’s when she knew she needed to get out of there.  It was either that, or go insane.

Yes, beloved.  She’d been confused while Sienna was alive, with the intensity and mix of the emotions and possible sources for them.  She was sure now though, she’d been very much in love with her fire mage.

Jerrold said he’d write, they said they’d be choosy, and not pick just anyone.  She wasn’t sure yet if she’d go back once they found someone suitable, maybe they’d have to make two replacements.  Her dream had been to get experience, and become a master after enough time.  The dungeon and mission had just been the excuse to get there.  And she’d gotten the woman she loved killed by her stupidity and self-absorbed behavior during a dangerous situation.

Now… nothing really appealed to her.  Her dreams were dead, or at least, they were frozen.

Sienna was dead, and color was gone from her world.  She truly wondered if it would ever come back…

Carlton sighed and rubbed his eyes.  It’d been an interesting week since the raid from Jennesar.  He’d used up all his contacts trying to find something, anything really, to tie that snake Verin to the debacle.  No luck though, either none of his contacts knew anything, or they weren’t talking.  At least, they weren’t talking to him.

The official finding on the four traitors had been that they’d gone rogue, without Verin’s knowledge.  As for the fifth, he’d never returned from Jennesar.  Either he’d stayed and joined them, or he was long dead like the others.

Verin had even gone out of his way to eject the Bishop from Jennesar in a very public way, and sent him on the way.  He was sure that was just a show, a cover, but there was no way to prove it.

There was a knock at the door.

“Enter.”

Selwyn came in, and based on his face he was very disturbed.

“What is it Selwyn?”

“Sir, I’m afraid we got a dispatch.  It’s not good news.”

Carlton frowned, “Out with it, I won’t hold you accountable for bad news.”

Selwyn nodded, “Sir, an inquisitor has been dispatched to look into your recent actions.  Traveling with him is high cleric Ennis.  I speculate he is your replacement sir.”

Carlton knocked on the desk while he looked up in thought.

“Ennis, he’s one of Verin’s toadies.”

Selwyn asked, “What do we do sir?”

Carlton shrugged and smiled, “We have a week to plan.  Whatever it is, it had better be good.”

Selwyn’s laughter was forced…

Things were cleaned up, and mostly back to normal.  I seemed to have gotten away with my small deception, and haven’t heard anything about more fallout from the replacement guild people in the keep.

I still had a lot of questions, but at least I had an idea where to find the answers.  I still had seventy some odd life forces around, but I couldn’t expand for a while yet again, so it would keep in my sex demon cavern.  The hold up there of course was my crystal size, which continued to grow.  I also wanted to crack the more powerful elemental issue first, since when I added new floors, they’d need to be more powerful.

I’d been working the crystal, several projects including the gnomes, spell work, summoning, enchantment, maintaining the dungeon, and I’d also started working on a new special project, which is pretty much done.  I’m just reluctant to do it, even if it’s a necessity.

What I really needed was a spy.  I needed someone to go to Jennesar to ferret out information about my enemies, and any clues as to what I should do when I can implement phase one of my escape.  I needed to plan my strategy, and I need information to do that.  Phase one of the escape plan, would be to create an avatar, and leave the rest of me here, and phase two of my escape was to make the dungeon my avatar, and leave with my true self and return to where I belong.

Phase two is a long way off.

Phase one I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing until the dungeon is strong enough, until I’m strong enough.  But before I can start, I need the information to plan.  I was aware of the internal issue with the church here in this kingdom as well, I did see the traitors kill the guild members up in the keep.  I had a feeling the information I needed about that was in Jennesar as well.

I needed a spy, and possibly a saboteur, which brings me back to my secret project.

“Lila, do you trust me?  You’ll do anything I ask?”

Lila replied, “Yes, why?”

“Because I have a task for you, many in fact, and this is going to hurt.  For that, I am sorry.”

I felt her nervousness at my statement, but no rejection, only willingness, and trust.

I reached out with dark and light magic so tightly twisted it looked like a single cord of gray, and I delved into her very soul, the essence of who she was.  I changed her, not the core of her or who she was, her desire for sex, none of that.  But I removed the twisted hatred, and the corruption of her soul, I cleansed it carefully of demonic traits while she screamed in my mind, and changed the very nature of her being.  It was the gift of her true name, along with intrinsic knowledge, which allowed me to do this.

I opened her soul up to the elemental sphere of light, now she would be able to wield light, darkness, and fire.  I filled her mind with many spells that I’d created, spells to help her spy, to help her hide, and to help her destroy if necessary.  She was still a being with a dark core, but like me she was now a higher being, not a fell one of twisted evil and hatred.

She was no longer a demoness.

Then I evicted her from our prison.  My escape would lead to my death, I was too much to exist on this plane without my prison.  But she wasn’t.  As I slowly threaded her soul and essence through the pinhole, I used earth, water, and fire magic to build her a new body.  Then I used twenty of my stored life energies, and filled the body with a whole lot of dark magic, a little fire, and a little light.

Her body was perfect, as was my memory of the first time we’d joined minds.  She was the exact image of her greatest fantasy, with two exceptions.  She had long lustrous blue-black hair, not golden blonde.  And her wings were the color of midnight instead of bright white, and soft as silk.

When her soul was freed, I inserted it into her new body, and her soul, essence, and all the power I’d poured into her body became one.  I don’t know why I had the instinctive knowledge to do this.  I don’t know if I was truly a god, or simply a power to be reckoned with.  I did know Lila was now far beyond a master’s power.

Lila came awake, and gasped a breath, and then looked down at her body, and studied her wings and hair.  She was beyond stunning, and so beautiful.  She was wearing the strongest weapon and armor I could create using all six spheres of elemental magic.  They weren’t as strong as a holy weapon or armor, but for mortal enchanted items they were extremely powerful and almost invisible to magical senses.

I waited patiently for her to finish her self-assessment, and then I would give her orders to go to Jennesar, and find information, spread discord carefully, and spread the name of Nurien.  I needed to know a lot of things, but there was one thing I already did know, and that was that I’d get my revenge and regain my rightful place.  That, or I’d die trying.

Lila asked in a soft awed voice, “What have you done to me?”

I replied, “My love, I’ve granted you your greatest fantasy and desire.  You are a power to be reckoned with, my first angel, my dark angel.”

Afterword:

I hope you enjoyed the story.  This was the first book in the Dark Dungeon series, which is tentatively planned for three books.  I tried to end it without a major cliffhanger, but obviously there are a lot of threads undone.  I hope the battle and partial revelations toward the end helped give it enough closure, but this is a trilogy.  Either way, you won’t have to wait long for book two.

I also made an effort to keep the point of views down to three, and tried to keep most of that focus rested on Nurien, I think and hope I succeeded.  My original notes called for six, which would have been way too much and disrupted the focus.  That will continue in the following books.  Catalina and Carlton will stick around as well, and no other POV will be added, except in the prologue of course...

Prologues don’t count…

If you can, please take the time to leave a review on Amazon and/or Goodreads.  Reviews are the lifeblood of independent authors, and make a big difference.

About the Author:  If you have any comments or suggestions you can send me an email at magicwrtr@gmail.com.  I started out posting short stories online and at readers’ requests started to publish them.  If you like my work, or even if you don’t, please consider leaving a review of this book.

Other erotic fantasies by D. R. Rosier:

Cirenthian Chronicles – Book one is Out of Darkness.

Marcus, an ancient vampire, finds himself moved to another world where suddenly he is alive again, and magic is a known and powerful danger.  No longer a vampire and dealing with emotions he hasn’t felt in over a millennium, will he be able to start a new life?  This series is now complete.

Necromancer Chronicles – Book one is The Necromancer.

Vincent is a necromancer and has an even darker secret. Feared by the rest of the supernatural community he lives on his own, often struggling with his powers, and how to use them. But change is coming, and he will soon find himself dragged into the middle of a suspicious and untrusting community.

Anise is a sorceress, but she has secrets of her own. She is an ancient being, who has walked the earth for time immemorial. She lives in a never ending cycle of life, forever watching those she dares to care about age and die. But she is about to find something new that will offer her hope, if she can live long enough to find it.

Cytherean Chronicles – Book one is Flame of Cytherea.

This two book series follows the chosen champion of a goddess, brought to her world and healed after he was mortally wounded on Earth.  At first Justin is a little lost, not knowing anything about the world he finds himself in or even why he is there.

Ashley’s Tale – This two book series follows the tale of a woman with unique parentage in a world greatly different from our own Earth.  It is twenty-five years in the future, and the supernatural have long since been exposed.  Ashley must struggle with her conflicting nature to find a balance, and her hidden power, as she is taken unwillingly into an extraordinary destiny.

Ashley’s Daughters – This three book trilogy is about Ashley’s three daughters.  It’s about a new world of dragons, and a second new world of human mages and all the fallout involved.  Of course, it’s also about them finding love, and their place in the worlds.  It starts about twenty-eight years after the end of Ashley’s tale.

Sentient – This is the standalone book following an artificial intelligence from an advanced race, a man who comes back from war a little broken, along with diverse others as the Earth itself is put into danger as they are dragged into an interstellar war against their will.

Sentient: Evolution – This is a sequel to the stand alone book Sentient.  It takes place a thousand years later, when Aide finds herself alone and broken, yet still following her programming.  Others join her as a new menace approaches, one that makes the Sthellan look like a great neighbor in comparison.

Will Aide be able to recover and rise to a new challenge?  She’s been alive too long, she must either evolve, or wither away, if only she could bring herself to care…

More books and series can be found on my author’s page at amazon.com/author/drrosier

The Dragon Slayer and the… This is a series of novelettes in a unique world, each story will be different characters with HEA endings.  These will be about eighty pages long and priced appropriately.  The first book, The Dragon Slayer and the Princess, is now available:

Sir Lance Spears, Baron, knight dragon hunter, has been hunting dragons for ten years. It’s what he’s dedicated his life too, eradicating the dragons that destroy human villages and see humans as prey.

He’s also been alone for ten years, and tired of the women of the peerage that see nothing of him, only of his titles and money. Not to mention, they all play the courtly game and faint at his feet. That’s not what he wants. He wants a challenging intelligent woman who will help make life interesting.

He should have been more careful about what he wished for, as his life is about to become very complicated as nothing seems to make sense about his next dragon hunt. It doesn’t fit in his world view as he enters a neighboring kingdom to help slay a dragon. He’s not sure what’s going on, and he also can’t get a certain princess with fiery eyes and attitude out of his head either. He better figure it out though, or he could lose everything… including his life.

Return of Magic -  This epic fantasy series follows Katie Merlin’s successor, and diverse others as magic reemerges in our world in response to a dire threat.  The government is in tatters, technology stops working, and most of the world’s population is dead.  A new era for mankind has started, and they must share it with other races, such as elves and dragons.

Melody Smith Novels – This is an urban fantasy that follows Melody Smith, a siren with hidden depths.

Melody Smith is a siren.  It isn’t an easy life, most of the people around her are affected by her mere presence, and she has very few true friends in her life.  Her love life is a disaster, and her boss and guardian, Brent, has been keeping secrets.

She’s about to find out she can become more than she ever would have guessed, if she can survive.

Shawn Moore Novels – This trilogy is an urban fantasy that follows a warlock named Shawn Moore

Shawn is a young man down on his luck, living in the streets. He isn’t lazy, it’s just for some reason people don’t like to be around him, and even fear him to a certain extent. They’d always had.

His life is about to change though, as a man named Ben tells him he had an uncle, an uncle that died and left him an estate. He isn’t sure he buys it, and has no idea he’ll soon be fighting for his very life.

Not to mention, fighting for his soul.

Ted Stedman Novels – This series is a mashup of litrpg, sci-fi, and other things.  The first title in this series is Ted Online:

Ted Stedman had a pretty good life so far.  He’s forty-three years old, and still in good shape when something at work happens to put him in wheelchair.  He finds his life is over, or at least the one he’d always known.  That is, until a research doctor at his own company walks into his hospital room, and offers him a deal that seems too good to be true.

Join Ted as he enters a fully immersive online world, and finds that everything isn’t quite how he imagined it to be.  He’ll have his new virtual life, access to the real world, and a game world to explore as well.  As if three worlds to keep straight wasn’t complicated enough, he has even more surprises coming his way.

Mike Stedman Novels – This series is erotic sci-fi space opera.  The first title in the series is Invasion:

Mike Stedman is unique.  Not human.  Not A.I.

He’s both.

He’s got himself a new ship to explore the stars that rivaled anything in the A.I. or Xaran fleets, a new position he never expected, and problems dropped into his lap that he didn’t see coming.

He wasn’t ready for it, he wanted to explore who he was, and the galaxy with his ship and companion Chrystal.

Then the biggest surprise of all, invasion.  Worse, the Xaran empire’s technology isn’t up to the task, he needs to step up, and step up big.

Dark Dungeon – Book one of this trilogy is Dungeon Spawned.

Nurien wakes up in a crystal prison, a soul stone, and has no idea what happened to him, or what he was.  It takes him a while to figure things out.

A dungeon imp eventually shows up to tell him what he is, a dark dungeon, and to help him learn and grow.  Problem is, it doesn’t take long for him to figure out that things aren’t quite matching up to little Ebony’s expectations.  Luckily, he has some other help in his head, another soul trapped in the crystal prison with him.  Unluckily, that help is a power-hungry demoness from hell.

He’s got a lot to learn if he’s going to survive and prosper, most of all, who the hell was he, and what?

Non-erotic Fantasy titles:

amazon.com/author/dlharrison

The Formerly Dark Mage, by D. L. Harrison – This standalone fantasy book follows the life of Silvia and takes place in a world unique and separate to our own.

Silvia is a dark mage. Unfortunately, she finds herself about to be sacrificed. Someone must have told her evil master about her plans to kill him and take over. After that, things just seem to go downhill. She has no choice but to escape the kingdom of Zual, something that to her knowledge has never been done before. She will need to deal with many issues she never had to face before.

Among those issues, the white mages, and her conscience.

The Rise of a Dark Mage - This stand-alone fantasy book follows the life of Cassandra, it takes place in the same world as The Formerly Dark Mage, but happens three hundred years later, long after Silvia is gone and some shocking changes have taken place in the world.

Cassandra is a dark mage in the kingdom of Zual, she’s also a mage prodigy.

She hates both her kingdom, and her master.  She wants him dead, not to take his place, but so she can leave and explore the world.  Her ambition will drive her to rediscover the secrets of the strongest of magic.

She is determined to succeed, or she’ll die trying.

Celia Winters Novels, by D. L. Harrison – This is an urban fantasy series.  Celia is a witch who finds out she is so much more in the first book, Witch’s Moon.  There are no cliffhangers, and each book will be complete in itself, though because of character development and the timeline I’d recommend reading them in order.

Just a Psychic: The Power of Air Book One, by D. L. Harrison starts off this series of a man who comes into powers he knows nothing about, and tries to both handle the present difficulties and find out about his past.

Ben has grown up with missing memories of his early childhood.

He has known he was a psychic since his earliest memories, seeing the future and gaining knowledge with his gifts.

Is it possible he isn't just a psychic?

Ben's world is about to be turned upside down as he turns twenty-one, all is not as it seems.

Alicia Jones novels, by D. L. Harrison is a series that follows a bright young inventor and scientist named Alicia Jones.  It is a space opera and light science fiction.

The first book is titled First Contact:

Alicia Jones is a genius, and a little odd.  At just twenty-three years of age, she is close to finishing her doctoral dissertation.  But when she tests her latest theory in the lab to generate a strong EM field, it has very unanticipated results.  Results that lead to faster than light travel, and first contact with another race.

Her life just gets more complicated after that, when she finds out who she really is, and that the universe may not be as nice a place as she’d been told.  Her determination to help keep Earth safe takes her to places more dangerous and strange than she’d ever envisioned.

Spirit Sorceress series, by D. L. Harrison is a new urban fantasy series.  Miku is a spirit sorceress who spent the last one hundred years growing up and learning about her power in the forests near Seattle Washington.  She’s about to make her debut in the big city, but not in a way she ever expected.

The first book is titled Spirit Sorceress:

Miku is a spirit sorceress who spent her unusually long childhood in the forest away from the city with her mother and father.  After tragedy strikes, she finds herself alone and on her own.  She knows that one day she’ll need to move to Seattle, and fully accept her birthright, and if necessary finish her training on her own.

But before she’s ready, and still in grieving, a rogue vampire and his band come along and change everything.  She’ll need to learn her new place in the world, and find some allies quick if she’s to survive.

Katrina Baker Novels, by D. L. Harrison is a new series about a super named Katrina Baker.  Problem is, she gets caught up in her mother’s plan, who is a mad scientist and supervillain, and gets herself transported to another world in the multi-verse.  A world where mages, witches, clerics, and the gods are real.  Not to mention the monsters…

The first book is titled Banished:

Katrina baker is a super.  She has mental abilities such as telekinesis, telepathy, and others.  Her parents are supervillains, and she isn’t all that sure she’s cut out for that line of work.  Her empathy with others through her power makes it hard to be uncaring, much less mean or evil to people.  Problem is, the last thing she wants to do is disappoint mom and dad.

Katrina gets caught up in her mother’s supervillain plot to get rid the world of the indestructible hero Omega, and that’s when it all goes really wrong, and she finds herself on another world.

Banished.

Will she be able to find her way back home, or even understand this new world of gods and magic, or will she die trying?

Book Description

Nurien wakes up in a crystal prison, a soul stone, and has no idea what happened to him, or what he was.  It takes him a while to figure things out.

A dungeon imp eventually shows up to tell him what he is, a dark dungeon, and to help him learn and grow.  Problem is, it doesn’t take long for him to figure out that things aren’t quite matching up to little Ebony’s expectations.  Luckily, he has some other help in his head, another soul trapped in the crystal prison with him.  Unluckily, that help is a power-hungry demoness from hell.

He’s got a lot to learn if he’s going to survive and prosper, most of all, who the hell was he, and what?